


Chaos of Worship

by BID



Series: Worship AU [2]
Category: Avengers (2012), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asgard, BAMF Tony, Betrayal, Body Horror, Fluff, Jötunn Loki, Loki is not ok, Loki needs.. many., M/M, Odin's A+ Parenting, Pain, Sequel to: Worship of Chaos, Sex, Snarky Jarvis, Tony Needs a Hug, Torture, Worship, selfhatred, sentient magic, voice-of-reason!Jarvis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:37:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 50,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BID/pseuds/BID
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For 'his' crimes Loki becomes focus of Odin's  A+ parenting and looses his magic, Aesir skin and freedom;  while Tony has to run SI, protect Jarvis from SHIELD(who get pushed by the World Council), not let the Arc Reactor burn him out and help Loki <em>somehow</em>.<br/>Also, this whole worship thing? It's somehow getting out of hand. </p><p>This is a sequel to Worship of Chaos, tags will be added with the chapters, enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pain & Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again!  
> First of all, **thank you all so much for for all the hits, kudos, bookmarks and lovely comments!**  
>  I present you the first chapter of "Chaos of Worship"!
> 
> Here a few warnings with minor spoilers:  
> Plenty of pain, betrayal and issues for Tony, Loki isn't even conscious for this chap due to off-screen but implied torture , and Pepper, well, Pepper picks the wrong things to be afraid of, and Tony juggles with all the problems like a pro! Jarvis and 'the babies' are Tony's everything, and he'd do anything to protect them.
> 
> I do not know yet how long this is going to get, since I took a completely different direction than I planned before, but I'll do my best not to leave too much time between the chapters, or any extreme cliffhangers.  
> Have fun reading!
> 
> -BiD

It was a few days after Loki, interesting, chaotic Loki had been escorted back to Asgard, when it started.  
Pain.  
In the beginning it was barely there, a tingle under his skin or a slight ache in his muscles, barely distinguishable between all the other bruises and fractures from the Chitauri fight, and didn't pay it much heed.  
After three weeks he realised that, no, it wasn't from their fight, it was something else, but an analysis revealed that his body was as alright as it ever was.

Jarvis's outer firewalls have been breached.  
The AI had of course smacked them out of his net like the flies they were, frying their equipment while doing so and pinpointed their location. It took them all but a moment to realise that it was the Helicarrier. SHIELD had tried to hack _his_ Jarvis.  
A bare minute later he had Fury on the phone, asking, to his own surprise, rather calmly, "What the fuck was that supposed to be?"  
The answer of "Your sentient creations are too dangerous to be left with a civilian, Stark." was the wrong one.  
They spent days writing new Firewalls for Jarvis, DUM-E and all his other babies, perfect walls of code that would protect was is his from any harm of the non physical kind.

The first night that Tony woke up, he thought that it was from a nightmare, but the pain lasted, his skin burning, blood boiling, his body oddly cold.  
No scans he and Jarvis made brought any clarity in the matter, after an hour the pain got tolerable, after almost two days it vanished completely.

Their search on who had spilled Jarvis‘s sentience went sluggish, and between waves of agony, blissed not-pain, Iron man and his duties for SI, he detached himself from SHIELD as much as at all possible, cutting the funds, deleting any information they had on him from their systems, and throughoutly explained to Fury what would happen if they tried to touch anything that's him or his again.

By now he was almost used to the lasting, and randomly appearing pain in his body, except when he wasn't and it being bad enough for him to double over.  
Pain medication didn't do a thing about it, not even something like Morphine, he knew, he'd tried, and it was only a matter of time till one of the worse waves would hit while around people. Thankfully, by now it had only happened in the secrecy of his workshop or bedroom.

Tony accidentally tripped over a video file that showed Pepper and 'not-dead-after-all-Phil' talking, and he just wanted to click it away when he hear her say "You need to do something about JARVIS, Phil, it scares me." "We will, Pepper, don't worry about it."  
The sound of their voices hung in the sudden silence of the workshop, and no, this wasn't possible.  
"J." he murmured, feeling his blood drain from his face, and clung to the phantom burn of his bones, feeling like he was about to fall apart.  
Jarvis though, usually the definition of 'proper language' just gave a few blips.  
Blips.  
He hadn't used blips in ages; they were from his learning days, when he did not know what word to use, or how to express himself.

Pepper!  
Tony's brain whited out, blue-screen, stopped, and he felt, he felt, he didn't know what he felt, he just jumped to his feet and ran up the stairs, to his penthouse.  
She would be there, she would be there and she'd tell him that this was a misunderstanding, and this, this couldn't be real!  
He slammed open the wall panel that had the stairs hidden from the pent house, and called out her name.  
His heart raced, and he followed her voice in to the kitchen.  
"Tony! What happened? You're white as a sheet! And I told you no Armour in the pent-house!"  
Confused he looked down at himself, and yes, he still wore the left gauntlet with which's sensibility he had toyed while watching the video sequence.  
The video.

 

He felt himself sway, as the burning sensation spread, and flinched when Pepper tried to help him.

"Why did you tell Coulson about Jarvis." he demanded, praying that there was some logical explanation, but her face changed, and he saw, horrified that she knew exactly what he was talking about, and -  
"It is dangerous Tony, it controls the Tower, and the Suit, the satellites, weapons, information, everything, and you don't even have a way to stop it if it get's out of control, do you even still have control?"  
 _Oh god_ did it hurt. It hurt and it took him a moment to realise that, no, it _didn't_ , it was the sudden absence of pain that made his skin oversensitive.   
And for a moment his mind was too stuck in that shocked numbness, but then, then he felt himself cracking, drowning, burning and _oh god_ why was it always the people he though he could trust?!  
Why, _why_ , **why ?!**

Tony couldn't think.  
He couldn't think, and he couldn't speak, couldn't breathe and he felt like he was drowning all over, in that tub in Afghanistan, at the brink of death just not to die after all, and he honestly wasn't sure if he'd make it this time. If he even wanted to.  
"Miss Potts," Jarvis spoke, "Sir wishes you to leave." His voice, usually filled with dry humour or exasperation was entirely, terrifyingly free of those emotions he had developed. He sounded like an apparatus. _Siri._ it flashed through Starks mind.  
Pepper bristled, "You can't speak on Tony's behalf, you are a machine." she stepped towards the inventor, voice softening and trying to reach him, "Tony-"  
but with his name, the man snapped straight, looking at her with what she would recognise as his serious-business-mask, just that this one didn't even remotely look like a mask.  
"Jarvis is, will, and has been speaking on my behalf for many times. Miss Potts, you are here by dismissed from you position as CEO from Stark Industries, you are to leave the premises of the Tower at this instant, any belongings will be sent to an address you are to provide. SI is willed to pay you 70% of your wages, despite the leak of confidential information you have caused, if you do not cause any further disturbances, until you found a new working position. Good Day Miss Potts."  
Peppers jaw dropped, "Tony! You _have to_ see _reason_! I am just trying to protect you! This is-" her voice faltered as she saw Tony raising his left hand, the one with the gauntlet, rising, palm pointed at her.  
"Miss Potts, please don't make me ask twice." Tony's voice was cool, much colder than he himself felt, his body numb, too pain free, too loose, much more detached and, god he hated doing this, he hated threatening her and he really didn't want to point the Repulsor at her, but oh how he _wanted_.  
How he wanted to destroy her, flay her, rip her apart for _betraying_ him like this!

But she left, lips pressed to a thin line she pulled her coat over her business costume, picked up her bag and left through the 'official' lift.

 

It took almost a week for the foreign phantom pain to return, but when it came back he welcomed it.   
All week he had felt like he had lost a limb, too light, to frail and fragile, as if he'd just drift apart when not watching out.  
He lost himself in the work. After firing Pep- Potts, he had to take care of SI himself, and while, yes, it was a shitload of work, he did it anyway, if only to blend out the emptiness he felt, to keep himself from drinking till he'd enter a stupor, and without whom would he have never been able to do it?   
Jarvis.  
Jarvis, who had scheduled him everything, gave him suggestions and even took care of some matters of his own, always checking back with Tony that it was correct and right.

It was Sunday morning when he dropped into his favourite chair in the workshop for the first time all week, that he realised the dull ache in his body, the pain that wasn't his and mentally he latched onto it and pulled, until it was a strong burning sensation, and he wrapped it around himself like a cocoon, trying not to break, and suddenly felt relief.   
It wasn't his relief, he realised after a moment, it was the same as the pain, foreign, not his or him, and fuck.   
What was that anyway?!  
For a moment he allowed himself to think of Loki, clever broken chaotic Loki, and wondered if it was him, if this 'worship' connection could go both ways, but it was impossible to get answers to that without having the god there to ask, and decided not to worry about it for now.

Instead he thought about the new office building he had bought, and the SI employees he had transferred there, all of them. He couldn't stand the Idea of someone else in his tower, and was really glad for a moment that the other Avengers hadn't taken his offer to come back to the Tower.  
The Assassins were still with Shield, just as Cap, Thor was in Asgard, and Bruce had decided to go back to India, he had missed the place, being useful in a not-hulk way, and Tony didn't take it personal, he thought he might understand.

The press had taken the whole 'Stark man's up!' about being CEO surprisingly well, and after only a few weeks he was titled the 'most relentless CEO SI has ever had' and the stock rose, since this time he really didn't shit around about it, sticking to plans, schedules and 'reforming' board member‘s opinions to his liking with his silver tongue.

 

It was three months after Loki's transport to Asgard, that he was in his workshop, working on a huge improvement of the Repulsor, his skin oversensitive from the last, truly extreme wave of pain, when Jarvis announces four Asgardians and Loki on the roof.  
The suit wrapped around Tony before he could even finish saying 'Armour', and a mere moment later he found himself hovering over his very own towers roof.  
And yes, there were four, quite obvious, Asgardians he didn't know, muttering about 'how to enter these halls' and a body lying between them, in thick chains and bleeding, unconscious as it seemed, dressed in rags, long black hair whipping in the wind, and _oh fuck_ that was Loki!

"Hello, can I help?" he called through the speaker system of the suit, and landed on his roof with a good distance, the four turned around to face him.  
"We have no matter with you, construct" Ass one called out, "but go and tell your master that we are to deliver this to Lord Stark."  
Tony narrowed his eyes, and retracted his helmet, _Lord_ Stark, eh? "You are speaking to Lord Stark, so watch your tongue."  
Very, very quickly the four's eyes widened and they fell to one knee, "We beg your forgiveness Lord Stark, the Allfather ordered us to deliver _this_ ," he gestured to the lump on the ground that was Loki, "to you, as compensation for the inconvenience it has caused you, my Lord."  
Tony tilted his head, as if he had to think about it, instead of just running over to Loki and help him.  
"His magic?" he asked, better get all the info he could.  
One of the Asgardians stood up, took a step over to Loki and raised a limp arm, "These silver bracelets make him unable to use it, and he can not take them off. It this present of the Allfather sufficient as compensation, my Lord?"

Tony gave it a fake moment of consideration again, "Sure, why not. Who knows that I have him? For how long? Any instructions on what to or not to do with him?"  
"Only the Allfather and us four, you may fare with him as you please, my Lord, and as long as it you deem proper, he only must not die.“  
Then Tony nodded, "Ok, I can do that, this'll be great. You can, I guess, beam yourself back or something. Thanks to your Allfather."  
"Very well, Lord Stark. Good morrow." and all four of them grabbed an object and vanished in a flash of magic, leaving a wounded, bleeding Loki on the roof.

"Well, fuck." Tony hissed, "Jarvis, I need to have the rest of the day free, and only the absolute necessary next week, your call."  
"Of course, sir." Jarvis answered calmly, "I'll have the guest room ready."


	2. No son of Odin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki get's taken to Asgard, to face his _rightful punishment_ against the realms of Asgard and Midgard.  
>  Thor shows sudden skills in communication and Odin goes all out to ensure that he'll never again have trouble with the younger prince of Asgard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, chapter two. Took me a while since I couldn't make up my mind on what the hell I wanted, and then couldn't write that the way I needed to, so then I did something different after ignoring it for two weeks and.. yeah.  
> But in the end I do like this chapter.  
> Again, all kudos, comments, criticism and corrections are welcome!
> 
> Enjoy

Thor had taken him to Asgard, to stand trial for his crimes and to receive his ‘rightful‘ punishment, and wasn't that just _great_.

They departed two days after his initial capture, for SHIELD felt the need to interrogate him, as did the Avengers and he had seen every single one of them for far longer then he cared.  
Loki only cared about _one_ , seeing _one_ person, the man who was responsible for that incredible feeling that was still flowing through his body.  
The rich black silver clinging to his bones, and ask him _„Why?“_ and _„How?“_. 

Anthony Stark, the Man of Iron.  
But of course the one he wanted to talk to, the one he wanted to tear open and _see_ , that had been the one which whom he only had moments in private, if at all really, the longest being a brief talk about what was going to happen, the merits of chaos, trading insults and Stark tending to the wounds SHIELD had inflicted on him in a pitiful attempt of interrogation.  
Or revenge.  
Probably revenge.

The light banter between them had been irrationally soothing, and the man's touch on his skin electrifying as it sent even more liquid sparks of the heady silver aura over his skin.  
Then Thor came, telling him that everything was prepared for their departure and taken him away.

As he stood before his bro- Thor in chains and muzzled like an animal, sharp metal spikes boring into his tongue, holding it still, he didn't look at anyone, didn't want to see the hatred or, the nine forbid, pity.  
So instead he just grabbed the other end of the contraption Thor held towards him, feeling Odin‘s disgustingly bright golden magic and the Tesseract in the middle, and twisted it's handle as expected of him.

Loki remembered his last travel with the space-gem, stepping from his torturers chamber into the SHIELD facility in the blink of an eye, but this time it felt different.  
Different, as in that instead of opening a neat little door, Odin‘s magic bound them to the object for a short time and they got pulled. Pulled through emptiness and darkness.  
 _The Void_.  
And for a moment, a minute, ages, eons he was lost again, falling instead of being pulled and remembered the ember of worship flickering out, panic clutching at his mind- -  
And then he was in Asgard.  
Falling to one knee, Loki tried to gasp for air that his muzzle didn't allow him, feeling faint and jittery.  
If it hadn't been for Anthony, the black, silver liquid caging his bones and his body and his mind, he'd probably have lost himself in the greedy emptiness of The Void, and by the gods he hoped that he'd never again have to feel that.  
For onlookers eyes it was all but moments till he had gathered himself again, but internally he was still reeling and failed to react as the guards hurriedly clasped shackles around his feet and neck, connection them with a chain, around his hips for leverage, then practically dragging him to the dungeons.  
He knew how to walk, thank you very much!

It was, what he assumed, the second day, when guards came to guide him to the great throne room, this time thankfully without any dragging.

So here he stood, still muzzled, bound and unable to defend himself, in front of the Allfather‘s wretched golden throne, to his far left and right the counsel, at his immediate side -- Thor.  
Thor, the only one possibly willing to speak in his defence, had been traitorously silent up until now, and stayed it, just until the council voiced his opinion to sentence him twice.  
Once in the dungeons, for his wrongings against Asgard.  
Once under command of a mortal, for his wrongings against Midgard and -- _What?!_  
His bro- Thor, stayed silent, even when they discussed the duration of his stay in the dungeons (they didn't come to a conclusion), and for all Thor looked like he wanted to speak, no, to smash, stir and pulverise them with his damned hammer, he only spoke once the decision of which mortal he was to serve came up. 

"Father, I recommend my Shield-brother Anthony of Stark, the Man of Iron." the prince spoke, and Loki did his very best not to react to the name. _What was the oaf doing?!_ Odin though was silent for a moment. 

"And why would that be, Thor?"

"The portal that Loki opened was located on Anthony's Tower, the centre of his empire, using his power source, and he suffered considerable damage. He was the one to destroy the Chitauri's army with a single weapon that he flew through the portal himself."

"And you deem this your reason to recommend that mortal?"

"No." Thor answered, and Loki could see the surprise in Odin's face, could feel his own surprise as well.

"Anthony, Son of Stark is smart, father. Impressively so. He easily unravelled and exposed Loki's plans, reasons and intentions, how I have never seen _anyone_ do it. I believe that he is the only mortal you could hand Loki to, who has the resources to keep him in check, and the wit not to be manipulated."

The Allfather looked thoughtful, and Loki, internally, wanted to hug that stupid hammer swinging oaf, and congratulate him for finally using that skull of his for other things than head butting.  
 _If_ this worked, he owed him one for that, truly.

"Has Loki done him any other personal offence?"

"Aside from using the monument that carries Anthony's very name on it? Loki threw him out of a window."  
The Allfather raised an unimpressed eyebrow, and Loki felt the sudden, desperate urge to face palm. 

"From a height that equals the top of the palace. A deadly drop, not only for mortals." _Better._

"Oh." Odin only said, looked thoughtful and after a moment stood up, "The trial hereby ends. In the morrow I will personally inform Loki of his sentence. Take him back to the cell."  
He got taken away, back to the small cubicle that had held him before, surrounded by glass walls and not even a chair in it.  
So all he could do was sit on the floor and wait.  
Without thought he brushed the silver near his ribs with magic, enjoying the calming warmth it gave off when doing it, then finally letting sleep wash over him after a while.

 

What he assumed was the next morning Odin and two guards stepped in front of the glass wall of his cell.  
"Loki Laufeyson. “ the Allfather spoke, and Loki felt biting cold terror in the pit of his stomach for that name alone, "You will be held in Asgard‘s dungeons for a time not yet decided and be reprimanded for your crimes against Asgard. Following that you will be handed over to Midgard, to pay for your crimes against those."  
Odin lifted a hand and focused entirely on him, and Loki could feel it, feel Odin's horrid golden magic clawing over his too tight skin.

"I hereby relieve you of my name, of your title as Prince, of your right to reside in Asgard aside from your punishment, and-" Loki suddenly felt heat burn on his skin, "I hereby relieve you of the false Aesir skin which I had gifted to you so long ago, for you have forsaken it."

Loki's mind stuttered to a complete stop.  
"What?!" He gasped, "No, NO! You can't do that, Odin!! You can't-" slamming a fist against the, of course, _golden_ magically reinforced glass, he saw it.  
The blue of his skin, something between cerulean and lapis lazuli, the ridges on it, the -- _Oh by the_ \--  
Suddenly pain exploded in his head and he pressed his cold hands ( _not cold enough!!_ ) against his temples and bumped into a - a --

Horn.  
A horn, there were _horns_ growing out of his skull and _by the nine why was it so hot?!_

Loki felt how panic and horror made the adrenalin flooding through his body which in turn made the temperature around him blissfully drop, and there was ice blooming on the glass in front of him, and --

"Raise the temperature of the cell until he passes out, then take him to the dungeons and do what you must." Odin spoke, barely audible over the screaming of blood in Loki's suddenly very sensitive ears, seeing the man he once called father turning around and -- it was too bright. 

Everything, everything was flooded in light, too bright, _too_ bright, _too_ hot, _too_ small, too _loud_ and it _hurt_.  
It _hurt_ and _burnt_ and _roared_ \--

And then?

 

Then there was darkness.


	3. Cyan Razorblades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Loki's time with his "caretakers" he learns a bit about worship and that it can do more that _just_ that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi,  
> this chapter went down rather quickly, which is why it's here already.  
> I hope you guys like it, I may make minor edits tomorrow, if I find anything that really, really bothers me, but I don't feel like waiting till tomorrow with posting.  
> Please be aware that this chapter contains (surprise, surprise) torture, worship, and self hatred.  
> If you see anything noteworthy (positive or negative) please let me know, I'm happy to receive critic, corrections, love letters and kudos.
> 
> Is this now T or M?! help please!  
> Please enjoy!
> 
> BiD
> 
> FIY the tumblr tag (where I post anything from flailing over your comments, over updates to "Wtf am I even doing" ) is **#bid's chaos of worship .**

He heard the screams first.

High pitched screams of begging for forgiveness, of pleading and praying  
and deep roars of defiance, of fight, of caged animals and monsters that had their teeth pulled, claws mutilated, bound, breaking, broken.

 

Then he realised it had been his own raw throat that made those sounds as he woke up out of another illusion.  
Numbly Loki recalled that one of his 'caretakers' had a particularly nasty spell, which could give you the belief of surviving years in torturous captivity, when it was only minutes. And he had seen many, many of those false years, and it would be so easy to pull the illusion apart if he could only reach a strand of him seidr, but it was locked away.  
Locked away with a thousand nets and locks and chests, doors, moats, gateways and failsafe and silver bracelets, so that even he couldn't make his way to it.

Loki tried to draw a deep breath, chocked (again) on his salvia (or was it blood? Probably blood.) then tried to cough it out, but coughing without breath doesn't quite work and it hurt.  
Everything hurt with dull throbbing, sharp stinging or burning and it was hot, so unbearably hot! He couldn't even think of a single time he had felt this hot, not even in the dwarves forge had his skin burnt like this.

So he tried to lock the feeling out.  
Just lock out the pain and the heat and retreated to the back of his mind, to the cool black and silver shimmer at his neck, in his bones and wrapped himself around it, and he felt the sharp pain dull down to a bearable ache.  
He just drifted for a while, slowly unwinding without the edge of it grinding on his mind--

Suddenly he found himself screaming again as someone dumped a bucket of boiling water over his head, ripping him out of the stasis and accidentally, somehow pulling the worship to the front of his psyche, presenting it to the wave of pain and found himself surprised.

It absorbed it.

Not all of it, obviously, but the pain lessened remarkably as the worship took it in like a sponge, and again, only left a dull ache behind.  
It made him able to think clearly for the first time in --  
well, he assumed it had actually been only a few days, but to his mind it had been years since he could just properly _think_.

But he honestly wasn't sure if he wanted to.  
Thinking meant remembering.  
Remembering what had happened, and remembering what colour his skin had.  
It wasn't as if he could see it, strapped to a table as he was, but the knowledge alone made him want to crawl out of it, out of his own skin, made him almost, _almost_ welcome the unbearable heat that threatened to make his head swim again.

After some (what he assumed) weeks (or millennia, he wouldn't know, really) he learned how to use the quicksilver worship, how to cast himself around it to loose the edge of the pain at any time, or how to wrap it around himself, using it as a shield, as a blanket that made him unreachable for anything outside his mind, even the pain, to let his thoughts go adrift within the blackness, and if his mind had lungs he'd sight, but of course it hasn't.  
This way he stayed most of the time.  
He doesn't know if his body is still breathing.  
Does he even have a body?  
What was it like?  
Wasn't it, ah, yes, blue, it was blue, and cold. Colder than it should be but not cold enough and he felt all the things wrong with it, but he really didn't care.  
Care, like the black liquid caressing his mind.  
Silver.  
Black.  
Silver-black quicksilver, and oh how he adored it.

He really did.

Until the day it turned to cyan razorblades and barbed wire.  
It lashed out, tore at him, his own shield almost slicing him apart until he fled back to the confinement of his screaming body, appalled by the sudden, unreasonable attack.  
He remembered the last time it had burnt on his skin, burnt like balefire in the Void but not _burning_ him.  
This time though? 

This time it was different. 

This time it slashed anything that came to near, anything being him, froze in his bones so cold it burnt worse than anything that had been done to him, and all he could do was stare at that thing that used to be sleek black silver worship.  
Loki saw it freeze, then it flared back alive, burnt, boiled, tossed spat and warped, an olive aquamarine abomination of betrayal was it now.  
And even though he should feel betrayal himself, should scream (maybe he did) from the pain and rip it out of his marrow, all he wanted to do was hold it.  
Hold it, and find Stark, his Anthony, his genius, find him and be his weapon to point at whomever was the cause for this.

Now though he could do nothing but flee from it, by waking up properly for the first time in a long time to a trashing body, heart racing and wait for it to stop from tearing him apart.  
At the same time he realised that this was the first time in a long time that he thought this clearly.

Loki's torturers gladly took him back in and told him everything they had done to him while he had been... absent.  
They told him how his body had writhed and screamed from the pain, and that they actually had hoped to have broken him, empty eyes and all.  
"But then" they told him, "you suddenly stopped making a pip, started weeping like a babe and woke up. I wonder what happened in that Frost Giant head of yours."  
Loki didn't flinch as they called him that, reminded him of what he was, he didn't really.  
He did wait though, wait for the worship (and how was that worship? was that normal?) to calm down.  
In the meantime he endured their torture, which had gotten so much worse, now that they exactly knew what created the most excoriating pain imaginable.

After two days it had stopped cremating his bones from the inside and the muddy olive had left.

After four it stopped lashing out, and he wanted to wait for the _other_ colour to fade which looked too much like his (not his, never nerver never his) skin color for comfort.

Day seven forced his hand as he was on the brink of despair, of insanity, of shattering apart, so he carefully reached for it, lightly brushed along it's outlines, feeling the agonizing pain recede a little, but not enough, not even remotely enough.

Almost with panic Loki felt the quicksilver worship, with it's lingering razor edge of cyan, tear hooks into his mind and forcefully drag him under, wrapping itself around him aggressively, threateningly, and for a moment Loki was about to flee again (how pathetic) when he realised what it was after.

The pain.

Like some beast in a blood rush devouring layer after layer of agony, tearing it away from him until he felt raw and exposed but relieved.  
So, so relieved that he wanted to weep, mayhap he did, he wasn't sure.  
Then, slowly it started to cradle him again, like it used to, still combing through him, again and again on the search on any lingering ache (there were none) and for a moment he felt like the hatchling of a fierce, bloodthirsty but loving drakaina*.  
Just a moment after that thought he fell asleep of exhaustion, or unconscious, absentmindedly noting that his body still got cut open, that it still screamed but _he_ couldn‘t feel a thing even if he tried.  
Not that he did.

 

One time they woke him up, pulled him out of his little alcove in his mind by dumping his body in a tub of ice water and it was bliss.  
Pure glorious relief (if his mind wouldn't keep chanting _Frost~Giant Frost~Giant Frost~Giant_ ) for almost an hour.  
Then they came, pulled him out, back on the table and restrained him.

 

The next ten minutes were spent sowing his lips shut with a thick golden thread and a, what Loki recognised as a leather-needle, "so the mortal wouldn't have to bother with his foul lies" they said.

As quick as he could he sank back into the arms of worship, turning away from his body. 

He couldn't take this anymore.

 

Loki remained like this for weeks.  
Within his little sphere that the silver-black (cyan edged) worship cut out for him and stayed well away from his body. He had had of enough pain, enough of the agony and the torture, it allowed him to stay, it kept the pain away and so he decided not to leave.

Sometimes he dreamed he was with Anthony in what he assumed to be Stark tower. 

But it wasn't real. 

He knew it wasn't.

For one his body didn't hurt, even though he walked around.  
His lips would part to eat, but of course those were still sown shut.  
The most obvious thing though was the way Anthony looked at him, worried, but not fearfully so, fascinated and wondering, as if he was the most beautiful thing the mortal (no, The Not-Mortal) had ever seen.  
Which was simply (cruelly) ridiculous.

He was _blue_.  
Jötunn-blue with horns (did he even still have those or were they sown off?) on his head, he was a monster, a creature.  
There was nothing that could've shown the man anything else, his own magic in iron chains, and O-- _His_ magic long gone, there was nothing that would spare Anthony the sight of his monstrous nature.

If Stark ever saw him he would know, and there would never be a thing like worship again.

Realising this now Loki really, really hoped Thor's pleas to send him to Anthony would fail.

None the less, those were the dreams he didn‘t want to wake from. Never.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *In Greek mythology, a drakaina (Ancient Greek: δράκαινα) is a female dragon, sometimes with human-like features. Source:Wikipedia  
> I wanted the word for a female dragon (you know, like lioness for lion?) and i really liked drakaina.


	4. If Loki was a goat...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony still couldn't believe that he had the fucking God of Chaos, whom he thought he'd never see again, lying half dead on his workshop table, received as express delivery from Asgard and all for him to take care of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the title, seriously I couldn't think of anything good like for the other three chapters, and I'm not as happy with this one as I am with the others, but I really don't want to hang myself up on it!

Tony still couldn't believe that he had the fucking God of Chaos, whom he thought he'd never see again, lying half dead on his workshop table, received as express delivery from Asgard and all for him to take care of. Dummy had brought him the extensive first aid kit that Pep-   
that he had stashed under one of his worktables and...

"Ah, no Dummy, thanks, but I can't use the oil cloths on him. Bring me some clean ones. Go on." he called, while Jarvis quickly took off the armour and confirmed what his interplanetary courier had said:  
There was no detectable magic in Loki's body. 

Just a moment later he was next to the table again and he knew he needed to do something, but where to start?! Every inch of Loki's body was covered in grime and a half dried, almost gel like, slimy substance all mixing with a thick blue ooze pouring out of most visible wounds and there were many of those.  
When Tony realised that the God's lips were sown shut he thought he was going to throw up.  
No, seriously, how sick was that?!   
Lie-smith or not!  
Also, the red he had seen earlier and assumed to be blood was some sharp smelling chemical, and most definitely _not_ blood.

"Sir," Jarvis called out, "You will have to clean him first before you can take care of the wounds. I have taken the liberty to draw the master bath, cold as I might add since his core temperature is a lot lower than his outer. Please do notice that Loki's physiology has changed since his last appearance."

"Yeah," Tony answered numbly, "right, let's do this, ok? J, take the MARK 42 or something and carry him up, I'll head in front of you and get things ready, uhm. Yeah, let's do it like that." and sprinted upstairs to grab some towels and the medical grade soap.

Carefully they had lowered Loki into the tub after removing the-- the what ever the hell those were, rags or something.   
Rags, chains and fucking leather threads from his lips.  
And while Jarvis helped to stabilise the body, Tony used a flannel and the increasingly murky bath water to for a first wipe down, and it was then that he noticed after a bit of careful scrubbing, that Loki‘s skin was actually light blue.

What the hell?  
Yeah, right, not concentrating on that now, he had a god to clean up, blue or not.

They had to rinse the bathtub six times before the water stayed reasonably clear, except for blood that slowly trickled from far to many cuts, rashes and open burns, and he even washed out the gods mouth to make sure that all teeth were there (they were) and promptly cutting himself on those ridiculously sharp canines.

What had taken longest was actually the hair, drenched in dirt and the thick blue liquid, which he knew by now was blood, it had tangled and knotted itself to one bog bunch of a black mess.

Jarvis had pointed out that cutting it off would be a lot easier, which was how Tony ended up explaining to his AI that people usually are quite (literally) attached to it, and that cutting hair without permission is like cutting off a few unnecessary but pretty strands of his code, just to make his program run that little quicker.  
"Forgive me sir. I have express ordered a Conditioner which has exceptionally good recommendations for untangling hair. It will arrive in some hours."

Tony smiled and hefted the still lifeless body out of the tub, drenching himself some more and carried it into his bedroom to put him on the duvet.  
Carefully he dried Loki, disinfected open and irritated skin and had Jarvis walk him through sewing wounds, resetting joints and properly splinting an upper arm bone   
and then literally covered him in bandages, only leaving neck head, hips and hands free.  
Not to forget a pair of boxer shorts to keep the god decent.

With a sigh and just feeling a little sick Tony went to the head and took another look at the mess that were horns.

Yes, honest to god, horns, or at least one that was still whole and as long as Tony's lower arm.   
The other, the left one, had been broken off in the middle, leaving sharp splinters and thick clotted blue blood (hah, talk about royalty); thankfully Jarvis had told him while they were in the bathtub what they had to do.   
Or what you'd have to do if Loki was a goat, but that was close enough for Tony.  
So he clipped off the jagged edges, cleared it out, disinfected and applied some more blood stopper, wrapping it up neatly with gauze and then falling back onto the other half of the bed.

At least he knew now why he had had this horrible headache for days now, and that, yes, the pain actually came from Loki, since he had felt the burns, the pull on his lips and the pain of a broken bone long before the god had been dropped onto his roof. He had also felt how the pain slowly receded during the bath, now only leaving a dull burning, and throbbing sensation clinging to his skin.  
He wondered if the transport of the pain was that worship thing, or if Loki had put some spell on him and if that even worked when he was out of magic.

Whatever.

The past few hours (yes, it had taken hours) had been exhausting, and right now Tony couldn't even feel his hands from the cold which Loki needed.  
Adopted, huh? Sure was.  
"Anything else we can do, J?"  
"I'd recommend you to put Mr. Odinson under a fresh duvet with some ice-packs, and then get yourself warmed up and cleaning the workshop. You also missed lunch by two hours. Should I order some Burgers?"

Tony smiled. Jarvis knew that Loki's wounds, no, the quite obvious _cause_ of Loki's wounds had actually rattled his maker, and of course, what his comfort food was. 

Over observant bastard.

"Sure, get some BK." he answered.  
Slipping off the bed again he looked at Loki and wondered, "What _is_ his core temperature?"  
"Four degree Celsius, sir. The order is placed and I am to remind you that Burger King usually does not deliver. But since you offered such a generous tip it is taken care of. The MARK 42 is in the Workshop, getting cleaned by DUM-E."   
“He‘s using the oil-cloth, isn‘t he?“  
“I _am_ supervising him.“  
"Oh what would I do without you, J?" Tony sing-songed, dramatically throwing a hand on his chest and the other to his forehead.  
"You'd be dead, sir." Jarvis commented dryly, making Tony giggle as the inventor pulled out the duvet from under Loki while trying not to move him too much and throwing it onto the ground, then pulling a fresh one out from a case under the bed and gently placed it onto him.  
His next stop was the minibar for ice-packs, and a minute later a hot shower (ignoring his poor stained bathtub for which he'd have to pay the cleaning-lady extra, fresh clothes, two fingers of scotch, burgers and a significantly blood free worktable and another hour of browsing through his list of projects and then while actually sorting his mind, the doorbell rang.   
Again?

"The delivery to save Loki's hair, sir." the AI informed him, and, yes now Tony remembered what he had forgotten to do.   
Fix some godly hair.

So he quickly went to the door, received his bag from a quite disgruntled old lady and promptly (accidentally) slammed the door into her face.  
In no time and a scotch, Tony was back in his fridge-- bedroom while a quick instruction from Jarvis told him what to do, and what not to do.  
Carefully he turned the god onto his side, wincing when his arm stung as Loki's got moved and watching out as not to scratch himself (again) on the point of the intact horn.  
Quickly he sprayed in the conditioner into the long black curls and while he waited for it to soak through (putting on a hoodie because _fuck_ it was cold) he answered some messages concerning Stark Industries, pointedly ignoring another unread e-mail that was from Pepper.   
_Miss Potts_ , god damn it.

 

Untangling Loki's hair with a soft brush while sitting behind him listening to the mostly even breaths was almost meditative.  
Just pulling one strand after another, brushing them until it was all loose, putting it aside, repeat.  
So Tony let his mind drift.   
But really, he didn't want to think about his problems with SHIELD, or Pe- Potts' betrayal, SI, not even what he'd have for breakfast tomorrow or how he was going to manage a company, a number of enemies, being Iron Man, inventing things _and_ taking care of the Little (blue) Prince who fell from his star?

Not to forget the fact that brushing the last few strands of Loki's hair, no matter how much it needed it was entirely too domestic for Tony's taste, and that with putting him into his own bed showed a lot more trust than Tony had intended to invest on anyone (who wasn't Jarvis) ever again, besides this wor--

Tony's thoughts got abruptly cut off by the pain in his body wavering and hearing a sharp groan from the body in front of him.  
Slowly, carefully without disturbing the mattress Tony moved back, out of Loki's reach. Rounding the bed once he was off it, to face him.  
"Morning Princess, you with us?" he asked as he noticed that the blood red eyes were open, and man he hoped that they were supposed to be this colour.

At first there was no further reaction from Loki than lying there with his eyes open, breathing heavily.  
Then he blinked slowly and seemed to really look at Tony.  
"Stark?" Loki croaked and the inventor felt again the pain in his upper arm flare up as the god briefly leaned on it as he sat up.  
"The one and only, Little Prince. Welcome to casa Stark. How are we faring today?" he answered with a smirk, handing the god a bottle of water.  
To his surprise Loki was silent and still looked a bit dazed, though the god did accept the bottle and drank it in only a few gulps.  
"Oh I see." he said then and at the same time that Tony felt a slight tug on his mind, the god fell asleep.

 

It went on like this for almost a week.  
Loki would randomly wake up a few times a day, drink, eat and sometimes bathe.  
He‘d wander around the penthouse or stare at the Manhattan skyline when Tony wasn't there but if he was he usually had the silent god more or less glued to his side.

What in general wasn't a problem, in fact Tony just might even have come to enjoy the way the god would stumble into his office and stand next to Tony's chair, side pressed against the mortals shoulder or flop down onto the leather sofa and sleep some more.  
The fact that at night, _if_ Tony went to sleep Loki always ended up on top of his duvet, instead of the guest room the god now occupied, was something he still had to get used to.

No what confused, no, really disturbed him was the way Loki was passive. It was as if everything the god did was out of habit, a muscle memory or base instinct but lacking the sharp awareness and intellect or an active mind.  
Something held the god back and Tony wanted to know what it was and how he could snap him out of it.  
Because there still was an active mind in it. Tony saw it in the way Loki seemed to loathe his body.   
How the god pointedly never looked at his skin or mirrors, kept scratching at the raised marks on his arms above the silver bracelets and never, ever brought a hand near his horns and therefore hair.  
What of course meant that Tony had to care for the black mane himself, but every time he would touch Loki the god looked at him as if Tony was some divine creature, as if Tony should be anything but fascinated by the unfamiliar physiology and damn he just wanted to make the god comfortable with himself, because no one should hate his own body so much that it is engraved onto a subconscious level.

He just really, really needed Loki to have all his faculties together (and tell him what the fuck had happened, why he was blue and how they were going to continue now).

If only so he wouldn't have to worry about a semi-sentient blue alien royalty wandering around his house when he had to return to his full schedule in three days.


	5. I'm real. You're here. You're awake.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares turn into dreams, which turn into nightmares, which turn out to be reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as long as the others, but I hope you like it anyway.  
> My Christmas present to everyone who reads this, leaves comments or kudos, which make me incredibly happy by the way :)
> 
> Happy Holidays everyone!

Tony's awareness got ripped out of a nightmare early in the night.  
For a moment he lied there, shivering and panting, still feeling desert heat and water in his lungs when he saw someone leaning over him and something cold touching his chest.

The inventor didn't even think when he grabbed whatever touched his chest and twisted it behind the attackers back, turning him and pressing him into the mattress and slamming his knee into the attacker's spine, barely able to feel the pain that shot up in his own one.  
It took Tony a long moment to realise that who he was holding down was cold and that the room and body‘s temperature dropped by the second until the inventors hands and knee burned with it.  
And that was when he realised: Loki.

 _Fuck!_  
Quickly he let go and took two steps back and _fucking hell_ he couldn't feel his hands!  
But he could see Loki and the god was slowly sitting up, as if he was afraid to startle Tony while biting his lip so hard that it started to bleed.

"Lokes" Tony called out, "Loki you ok?"  
What the fuck?  
Why should Loki be ok!  
He tried to get his reactor!  
He touched the _fucking reactor in his chest_!

A movement in the corner of the room caught the inventor's attention; it was one of the turrets under Jarvis' control that was usually hidden in the ceiling.

"J?" he asked and the ceiling promptly answered,  
"He didn't touch the reactor, Sir. Though I thought it a good precaution if he did."

"He didn't-- ?"

"No sir."

Tony let out a deep breath and looked back to Loki, who was now sitting on the bed and stared blankly on the floor, still worrying his lip.

So he sat down next to him, a few inches between them just in case the god could still give him frostbite and thought what he could possibly say or do that wouldn't undermine his anger with the god and wouldn't be too harsh of an attack on Loki, who had walked around too exposed for Tony's taste.  
Maybe it was trust and he wasn't going to use and betray that, maybe it was weakness and using that would b--

"So now even my dreams turn into nightmares." he heard the god murmur, almost too low for Tony's ears. But only almost.

"What do you mean with dreams?" the genius asked.  
It took Tony a moment to realise that, if Loki meant that literal, if Loki actually thought these were dreams then that would explain his passiveness, it would explain why he walked around with all his defenses down, since, hey it's a dream what's the worst that could happen and --  
Oh. _Fuck._ How fucked up was that?!  
Loki though looked up and blinked at him a bit inane.

"You think this is a dream." Tony answered for him, and the god tilted his head.

"What else would it be?"

"Reality?"

"Hardly."

"What makes it so impossible?"

"You."

 _Me._  
Tony stood up from the bed, because seriously? He couldn't just sit through this!  
So while he started pacing he asked,  
"Why me? Go on, tell me. If I'm a dream I want to know how and why."

The god looked at him oddly, as if _seeing_ him for the first time.  
"I am here, when I am strapped down on a table, isn't that proof enough?"

"Nope. Daddy dearest had you Magic-Express delivered to me, as 'compensation' for your crimes against me and my kind." 

"And you _took me_ without so much as a second thought?"

"You got tortured, of course I took you!"

"I attacked your realm, I threatened your empire and I tried to kill you! You wouldn't care!"

"To bad that I _know_ it wasn't you. Had to endure hours with SHIELD's shrinks for that one by the way." then the inventor stopped his pacing to stand directly in front of Loki.  
"And of course I care!"

The god though just seemed to bristle. "You wouldn't!"

"Why not?!"

Suddenly Loki sprang off the bed, his face only inches from Tony and shouted loud and desperate, completely failing to represent the aggression the god probably had aimed for:  
"BECAUSE I AM A MONSTER!"

For just a moment there was silence while Tony processed how he'd go on about this.  
There obviously was too much history and background knowledge for him to guess, but he chalked the first outburst of emotion from the god down as a success.  
It was sort of a progress, right?  
Tony took a deep breath and thought for a moment.  
He needed some information.  
He needed to know what was up with that blue skin, and why Loki hated it so.  
But if he was Loki then he wouldn't answer questions, tough if it was an exchange of information it might work...  
Even if Tony hated the idea of exposing himself in any way to anyone (who wasn't J, since the AI knew everything about him anyway).

Tony took a deep breath.  
Not an actual one, more a mental one and then said into the silence and into that brittle mask the god was wearing:  
"So am I."

Loki looked stunned for a long moment, though before he could say anything Tony continued with the mock of a bow.  
"The Merchant of Death, at your service."

"The Merchant of...?"

"I used to make weapons. Brilliant weapons. You know, the ones you only have to fire once. I built the best and the best I built, built better. They got into the wrong hands and now there are millions dead because I didn't care."  
Wow, how Tony hated saying this, but if he was right then it'd work, "I am the Merchant of Death. What are you?"

During his 'speech' Loki had taken a step back, staring at Tony as if he saw _him_ for the first time, as if it was very hard to believe Tony to be someone who had, how had Loki called it?  
'Red in his ledger'. Though less of the inky, and more of the bloody sort.  
But he could see right in front of him, plainly on the god's face calculations being rerun and the acceptance of the solution that, no the inventor hadn't lied.

"I am a Frost Giant." Loki then said quietly, slowly stepping back as if he expected Tony to lash out.  
Tony though of course didn't. The first obvious question he automatically wanted to say was: Is that why you're blue?  
But that would be a rather bad thing to say, too direct, too close, so instead he just said the next best thing, "I have no idea what that is."

Loki looked perplex for a moment and then, completely unexpectedly he laughed. 

The god laughed, almost hiccupped until tears streamed down his face and dropped back onto the bed, confusing Tony to no end.  
Why was he laughing?!  
He didn't say anything funny, but on the other hand, laughing was good, right?  
At least it didn't sound hysterical, but rather genuine. Maybe even relieved.  
He knelt down onto the bed anyway, grabbing Loki's shoulders trying to get his attention.

Tony did get it, in a way.  
When he grabbed the god's shoulders Loki turned to him and pressed his face into Tony's neck and shoulder.  
After a while the laughter died down, but the god still trembled  
.  
Again and again he heard Loki murmur, "You're real. _You're real_!" between the sobs that now shook him and--  
Oh Hell, the god was crying on him.  
Seriously though, this was what had snapped Loki out of the 'dream'?!  
Wow. Easier than he thought. 

So every time Tony heard those words „You‘re real.“ murmured into his wet neck, he'd softly, quietly answer into the god's ear.  
"I'm real. You're here. You're awake." and Loki would reply with his hands grabbing Tony a bit tighter, as if the inventor might flee.  
He of course didn't and he wouldn‘t.  
Instead he wrapped his arms around the god, holding him and waiting till Loki was able to regain his composure.

Though instead of recollecting himself Loki fell asleep in Tony's arms, practically on his lap completely wrung out and lax, huffing cold air at the inventors neck and rubbing a horn against Tony's ear and cheekbone.  
But that was just as good for the inventor, as long as the god wasn‘t crying anymore it was fine because, well, he wasn‘t good with people crying, even less with them crying on him. Seriously.

Instead he stayed awake for a while, discussing his schedule for the next week with Jarvis and going through his presentations again.

Tony didn't notice when he drifted off into sleep, sinking onto his bed with Loki snug against his side, legs tangled with a god who was softly snoring against his chest. 


	6. I'd rather you didn't...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jarvis and Loki have a little talk, and somehow no one seems to have much of a idea what is going on, while Tony has to be a good CEO and work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to give J some more attention, didn't I ?  
> Hope you'll like it,  
> comments, kudos etc are welcome as always and I always hope that there'll be plenty.
> 
> Wish you guys a happy new year if I don't manage another chapter by then!

Loki woke up slowly to quiet, familiar voices talking.  
It was cool, there was smooth fabric brushing his skin and something soft and slightly warm underneath him.  
He let himself drift back to awareness slowly, not particularly caring when memories of the night before welled up, reminding him that this was real.  
This was _real_ , so he pressed his face a bit firmer into his pillow, trying to stay under for a bit longer just because he could.

"Sir, I have to insist. You need to shave and shower. The presentation of the new Braille tablet cannot be rescheduled again."  
The pillow under him groaned and- oh.  
 _Oh._  
Not a pillow after all then.  
"Yes, yes, I'm going." Stark grumbled, carefully wriggling out from under Loki and replacing his, what Loki assumed to be a shoulder with a pillow under the gods head.

Now fully awake, but not moving he listened to the rustling of clothes and the sound of a door clicking only a few meters away from him, man and machine still discussing some sort presentation and what seemed to be today's schedule until the words got drowned by the sound of running water.  
He didn't want to move, not yet so instead he mentally went over the past few days he could remember.

And he promptly regretted it.  
By the nine, he had behaved like a scared child, jumping at every movement, hating to be alone and hating the darkness, crawling _into Starks bed_ instead.  
Not just once, but repeatedly!

Surprisingly though, Stark had taken everything in strides.  
He had been patient, kind and calm without mocking no matter what occurred, and even washed and combed the god's hair every day.

Loki hadn't dared to touch it.  
He had been afraid to feel those horns he knew were there (Anthony had changed the wrapping of one numerous times) and he still was, that much he could admit to himself.  
Even though he could feel them, he could feel that one was pressed sideways into the pillow he didn't want to accept it.  
He didn't want the ultimate proof that he was indeed what he was.  
Another proof was that the god felt cool, colder than could have possibly been comfortable for a human and then brushing one of his arms against the mattress it scratched at the oversensitive lines that covered his body.  
And Loki _hated_ it.

So he reached inside himself, feeling not for the worship, but for his-

His magic. 

His magic was still in shackles and this was when the god noticed the bracelets and swore under his breath.  
Anthony hadn't taken them off.  
The mortal had dared!

In an instant Loki was sitting upright, pressing a hand to his chest, reaching again but he couldn't touch it, just out of his reach.

"Good morning Bambi." he heard Anthony greet him, as the man came out from the bathroom stark naked, only to wander into another chamber that held his garments.

The combination of casual nakedness, which he was used to from Thor but had not expected from the mortal, the nickname and a god forsaken _machine_ lodged in the middle of the man's _chest_ , glowing like the nebula of a dying star had stunned him into stillness for some long moments, though he caught himself quickly and jumped from the bed.

"How dare you bind my magic, Stark!" Loki called after him, feeling frost rise with the anger and (admittedly) panic, though before he reached the chamber Anthony came back out about to knot his tie and a suit jacked clamped under one arm.  
"I've done nothing, ok? You got delivered with these bracelets, they keep your magic in check and I couldn't find a way to get them off yet. Look-"

"Sir, you've got one minute."

"Shit. Ok, Loki, look, ask Jarvis ok, he knows as much as I do. Get some breakfast, read a book, I don't care. Jarvis can give you anything you need. Gotta run. I'll be back around lunch, bye."

With those words Stark ran past him, patting a hand on Loki's shoulder, hissing at the cold and was out of the room.  
Just before the man could jump into the elevator Loki found himself in pursuit, hissing curses at Stark but then he was gone behind closing doors.

 

"I'd rather you didn't talk to Sir like this." the same voice Anthony had talked to said from around him, Jarvis was it?  
Odd name.  
But then he remembered that when he, _no_ , Thanos puppet had first tried to kill Anthony the man had called out that name.  
And later, after Loki had received his beating of the beast 'Jarvis' had taken off the armour and shielded Stark from the other Avengers.  
Where were those anyway? Loki had expected to see them sooner then later once he was on Midgard.

"And what would you intend to do if I don't follow?" Loki asked curiously, wondering what it could do without Starks instructions.

"The current temperature of the living area is thirteen degree Celsius." it's smooth voice stated, seemingly out of context but Loki understood and he shuddered at the thought.  
Humans usually preferred higher temperatures, he knew that.  
Therefore it was this low for him to be comfortable but just as long as Jarvis willed it so.

Though only a moment later Jarvis continued, light and calm as if the thread has never been spoken.  
"I have no exact designation regarding your name aside from 'Loki'. Might you add a surname to it?" 

"It is Odi--"  
Quickly he bit his tongue to still it, but thankfully the machine didn't comment, because no, it wasn't.  
He was not a son of Odin anymore and he would never be again.

Loki stared at his hand, pointedly ignoring the bracelet that bound his magic and found that the blue skin and the markings still looked wrong to him. Just so utterly wrong as they probably would for a rather long time but he was already wearing the skin, so he might as well carry the name as well for there was no use denying it anyway. Right?  
"Laufeyson." he said, "It is Laufeyson."

"Very well Mister Laufeyson. Would you care for breakfast and then perhaps share what you know about the current situation?"

"I would."

 

So he did. Breakfast consisted of, a 'sandwich', some boiled eggs and fruit, then began the exchange of information with Jarvis, who was the first to speak.

"Three months after Mister Odinson has taken you for judgement, four Asgardians appeared with you, Mister Laufeyson, on the roof of Stark Tower.  
You were given to, if I may quote, 'Lord Stark' as compensation for your crimes against Earth, also referred to as Midgard and it was stated that Sir may fare with you as he wishes, for as long as he sees fit.  
Despite the fact that you were unconscious, in horrendous physical and psychological condition, it was also stated that you must not die. You arrival was on Sunday eight days ago, and the only ones aware of your sentence to earth are the four guards, the Allfather, Sir, the bots and myself."

During the constructs speech Loki had relocated himself onto the great leather sofa which provided sight onto the rainy skyline of the city.  
His body might not ache but his limbs exhausted quickly what he supposed was normal considering the last three months ( Millennia, it had been millennia, really.)  
"Who are 'The Bots' you mentioned?" Loki asked, though Jarvis only answered that he would eventually meet them at a later time, "Then I suppose it is my turn now to tell what I know?"

"It is." was the voices simple answer.

Loki sat up straighter in his seat, recalling Odin's voice for accuracy's sake and willing himself not to stutter over the answer as his breath hitched when he spoke.  
"The Allfather took from me his name, my title, my right to enter Asgard and my Aesir skin. I was sentenced to be held in the dungeons and be, be _reprimanded_ for my errors, and given to Midgard afterwards. It was my brother's idea to have me handed to Stark and I suppose I'll have to thank him for it. That, I am afraid, is all I can tell you about our current predicament."

"All you can tell, or all you know, Mister Laufeyson?"

Loki couldn't keep himself from grinning, so it knew that people twisted their words, but then, it served Stark and he was sure that spirit, machine or not the inventor would have bored of it quickly if it wasn't sharp.

"It is all I know, Jarvis."

The answer was only met with a clipped, "Very well." and then he was left alone (not truly alone, he knew that much) in silence, gazing at the rather impressive city that the humans had created for themselves.

Hundreds and thousands of buildings made from rock and steel and glass, sheltering countless numbers of those small individuals from the miserable weather and giving them a home or work.  
He could see the streets and shops and cars, humans hurrying where ever they had to be with round contraptions over their heads, shielding themselves from the water he assumed. 

After a while he slid down onto the sofa, curling up into a ball and cursing his horns when one bumped into the lean.  
Before he fell into a light sleep, a memory of his mother Frigga welled up, and how the rain would always fall around her like a veil without ever touching her. Never wetting her beautiful dresses and elegant scarves, but eventually he drifted off.  
Not even noticing the lights around him dim and eventually go out for his comfort, or the temperature dropping a few degrees more.


	7. About "Special Treatment"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was almost ten at night when Tony more or less stumbled out of the elevator, throwing his suit jacked to the floor with one hand, tearing off his tie with the other and kicking his shoes against the next wall.
> 
> Like he did every night he blindly dragged himself into the living area and to his gorgeous lovely leather sofa which he could drop into any second and -- it was occupied.  
> Of course it was, anything to make Anthony E. Stark miserable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Me, _again_.  
>  Really wanted to get a new chapter out before newyears, so here it is! Extra long ;D  
> Happy newyears, everyone!
> 
> Also, you might notice the total chapter number went up, again.  
> What I had in my current plan as _one_ chapter turned into _FOUR_ , and if I go on like that, yeah. Then this'll be spectacular.  
> But I'm already proud of it since I've never managed to actually keep a story I've got online running this long! I mean we're past the 10k, seven chapters now!  
> Hah! (sorry)  
> A few things I got critisized on per mail:  
> No I'm not letting pepper off the hook like that.  
> No I didn't forget about the shield problem.  
> No Odin won't get away unscratched.  
> No I didn't forget the avengers.  
> No I didn't forget thor either.
> 
> Just wait, ok? I'm trying to not make everything too long, but not too quick either, all right? Bear with me, I'm not used to long fics.  
> But now, seriously go read the 3k rushed chaptr that is my current favourite (not courting Worship of Chaos).  
> If you have tips though how to make a long dialog less static please do let me know, or if it was ok as it was.  
> Bye!

Tony loved doing presentations.  
Well, at least he loved doing presentations of new tech he loved, therefore the Braille Tablet was a marvel.

The audience seemed to think so too, especially the blind half of it, every single one of them equipped with a prototype.  
The whole gig took three hours, afterwards there was a buffet for everyone, he answered questions for the press, received thanks and praise from his guests, made appointments with some sponsors and investors which ever vigilant Jarvis promptly added to his schedule.

One blind woman, Miss Morgan her name tag said, even was in tears, hugged him and declared him her personal hero, not because he was Iron Man but because of _this_ , not letting down the handicapped people.

An hour later all prototypes got recollected and thirty minutes after that the tower was empty again, except for the clean-up crew.  
He should invent some robots to do that.

Yeah, some days Tony loved being the boss of his company.

Then Jarvis reminded him of the Board meeting in on twenty minutes and he remembered why he hated it most days. 

"Didn't I promise our resident smurf I'd be there for lunch?" Tony asked as he scrolled through the Twitter tag of Stark Industries' prototypes and promotions, everyone was already head over heels for it.

"Mister Laufeyson is currently asleep Sir, and should remain so. A Frost Giant seems to heal quickest when in deep sleep."

"Wait, isn't he an Odinson? And do you have the video ready for the SI site?"

"Maybe you should read the transcript of our conversation while your driver, who is _still_ waiting at the entrance, get's you to your meeting. The video will take another twenty minutes, I am afraid."

"Yes, yes on my way. So he did talk to you? Man I'm good."  
Barely looking up from his StarkPhone, really the intro of the tablet was already going global trough the social media even though this had been a US only event, he made his way to the main entrance and his driver, dropping into the backseat of the white Jaguar.

"He did, as you predicted, Sir."

"Tony Stark, the Loki whisperer. You are getting slower though."

"I am sorry you noticed Sir. The firewall takes up almost a quarter of my space, but since you left a generous buffer since my last memory extension I believed I could work around it."

"Shit I knew I forgot something but I didn't expect it too take that much space. Why didn't you tell me earlier J?!" Tony sat in the black leather seat ramrod straight.  
What was Jarvis thinking, keeping information like that away, what if someone tried to hack them again and there wasn't enough space for Jarvis _and_ the firewall to work properly?

"I figured you had already enough--"

"During an attack the firewall can expand as it works and take up even more space, if it's there. You should know that. I need you."

"I am sorry Sir. I will be more efficient."

Tony felt like throwing his fucking phone (and earpiece) out of the window. Fucking Hell.  
"This isn't about you efficiency, Jarvis." he hissed, "This is about your fucking safety! I don't want you _hurt_ ok? I don't want anyone to be able to hurt you, hell to touch you even. I need you, and I don't mean because I can't run the company alone, but because- "  
Tony swallowed hard and then took a deep breath, "But because if I don't have you, there's no one. Ok? You're the last person I have, J. So for god's sake activate procedure EXT nine-zero- four-seven-seven-one-zero."

For a long moment there was silence before he had Jarvis' voice in his ear again, warm and soft telling him that he wasn't leaving, that he was grateful that Tony cared so much about him and that he too, didn't have anyone besides his maker. 

 

The meeting just went on and on and on, addressing everything that had been left hanging during Tony's "really bad cold" last week, which he did still act up a bit just in case someone though he didn't have one, but no one seemed suspicious.

 

It was almost ten at night when Tony more or less stumbled out of the elevator, throwing his suit jacked to the floor with one hand, tearing off his tie with the other and kicking his shoes against the next wall.

Like he did every night he blindly dragged himself into the living area and to his gorgeous lovely leather sofa which he could drop into any second and -- it was occupied.  
Of course it was, anything to make Anthony E. Stark miserable.

"What are you staring at, man of Iron." Loki's voice echoed through the fog of Tony's mind not really making sense for a few long moments.  
Man he was knackered.

"You are on my sofa." but now that he thought of it and saw the piercing red eyes really focus on him for once his brain rapidly sobered up, so maybe napping wasn't an option just yet.

Instead he shoved Loki's legs out of the way, earning himself a deadly glare and dropped down onto it with his feet next to the naked blue ones, back against his armrest and yeah the leather was really fucking cold.  
And it was glorious.  
It was also when he realised that he could actually see his breath a bit.

"Jarvis what the hell is the room temperature in here?"

"Fifty five degree Sir. Should I warm it up?"

"No man, make it default this is awesome. I don't feel like a furnace for once." Because no, he didn't and the meeting room had been way too hot for his taste anyway, making him sweat and his chest overheat.

"Very well Sir. It is set as the new default."

"Mortals aren't meant to live at these temperatures." he heard the god next to him say, it didn't seem like he was talking to Tony directly, but hell since when did he care.

"We're also not meant to have a metal casing in their chest that holds an Arc reactor which's centre is a few hundred degree hot." because yeah he couldn't fit a cooling system in there, though he did manage to insulate it really good, but the metal was still hotter than his body.  
Thankfully just not hot enough to burn (or cook) him from the inside.  
The strain on his organs wasn't nice but survivable and that it heated up his blood and he ran around with something like a constant fewer wasn't all too likable either, but what you don't do to keep your heart from becoming minced meat.

"Or do you think just anyone can hold their body temperature when cuddling with a giant blue popsicle for a few hours?"  
Loki just sneered at the comment but didn't grace them with an answer, though he did stare at Tony's chest as if he tried to see through the shirt.

"In fact," Jarvis interfered, "Sir's temperature was at a healthy level for the first time in years."

Loki looked surprised, positively surprised actually and a bit dubious, staring at Tony openly, "You truly have no issue with me being a Jotun, do you?"

"As I said, Lokes, I don't even know what that is. Care to explain?"

"Might as well. Frost Giants are from the realm of Jotunheim, a planet covered in snow and ice. They have been the mortal enemies of Asgard since before I was born, waging war, destruction and bloodshed. They are the monsters of the nine realms. No one in their right mind would ever host one." with those words Loki turned away from the inventor, staring at the window again but pulling a face when he heard Tony chuckle.

"No one has ever called me sane. Besides, you don't seem very monstrous to me."

He could see how Loki froze, could feel the temperature close to his (and therefore Loki's) feet drop.  
Then the god hissed through clenched teeth,  
"I have _horns_ , Stark." 

"And if you had antlers I wouldn't care. It's only one and a half horns by the way. Judging by your hair you didn't even get close to them."

 

There was silence for a few minutes, but tired or not Tony could swear that he saw the gods face darken a bit.  
 _Blushing!_ Huh, interesting.

Technically he didn't feel like moving, not at all, but staring at the tangled hair he just had to think of what a hassle it would be to get it unknotted tomorrow if he doesn't do it today.  
So, with a sigh he rolled off the sofa onto his feet, grabbed the comb from the bar and a chair, dragging it back to the god. Who was still sitting sideways on the sofa, craning his neck to glare at him.

"What do you think you are doing, Stark?"

"I'm going to brush your hair because it's just going to be worse tomorrow if I leave it or do you want to do it yourself? Break the other horn while you're at it?" yeah, it was underhanded tactics to mention the horns, but it worked, since the god turned his face away, presenting the back of his head and the mob of curls.  
Tony knew that Loki would think it to be humiliating, but he also knew that Loki got really calm and relaxed when he did it.

 

So he started with what was almost muscle memory now, first untangling the worst parts of the strands with his fingers. Careful not to pull it while holing the comb between his teeth.  
"I am hardly delicate, Stark." he heard him mumble, bit less poison than Loki probably had aimed for.  
"Doesn mean I haf to hurt you, does it?" Tony answered through his teeth, effectively shutting the god up. He wondered when it was the last time someone had brushed his hair (probably when he was a kid), or simply done something nice for him.  
Not that it was any of his business.

 

Now carefully combing through the black hair bit by bit Tony pressed his fingers against the gods scalp so it wouldn't pull, which was when he noticed Loki's shoulders sagging and the god's head leaning backwards into Tony's grip and have him hold the weight.  
Just as it had been their usual routine every morning and evening while the god hadn't been really there.

This was...nice.  
Nice in a way that seemed to exchange the marrow in Tony's bones for comfortingly cool water and clearing his head from unnecessary clutter.  
So he continued, carefully pulling the hair around the horns, pointedly not clacking with the comb against them and for once let things be quiet for almost fifteen minutes.

 

"I," Loki suddenly broke the silence, slowly as if he wasn't sure if he liked the taste of the words, but not taking his weight off Tony's hand, or opening his eyes, "Your worship. It is appreciated, Anthony. Thank you."

For a moment Tony almost dropped Loki's head (and wow that totally didn't sound weird at all, only about as weird as it felt whenever he dropped the phone when talking to Jarvis) but he held still, completely still.  
"Yeah, well, I do have a few questions about that. Is that pain thing normal?" he asked when he ran his fingers through the hair, a last time to check for any other knots.

"Pain?" Loki asked, eyes open and sitting up, turning around to face Tony, once the man had let go of his hair.

"Yeah. I can get your pain, and I can take it. You didn't notice? It's not like I can give you painkillers, they might poison you or something."

Suddenly Loki's face turned light blue, almost white and then he stammered,  
"Anthony, are you trying to say- are you saying that when I hid from the torture _you_ received the pain?!"

 

From one moment to another, before Tony could even give an answer he had a mass of Loki up close and right in his personal bubble with no chance to even draw back as the god almost frantically prodded his ribs, touched the back of Tony's neck and then investigated the mortal's hands intently.

 

"You bear no marks." he then concluded, and the inventor quickly pulled his hands back.

"Yeah, well I could have told you that. It's just pain, started a few days after you went to Asgard. Don't need to tell me what happened there, I pretty much get the picture. What I want to know is how you sent the pain to me and how I can pull it away from you. Did you do some crazy spell while you were still magiced up, or is that the worship thing too?"

For a moment Loki looked offended, but thankfully it changed quickly to curiosity and, was that wonder?  
"I casted no spell on you, I swear it. During my imprisonment I tried to escape the torture by distracting my mind with the feeling of worship. It happened by accident that I pulled it to the forefront and found out that it deflects the pain. So of course I used that quite... liberally." 

For a moment Loki fixated him with his eyes, the expression on his face openly remorseful and continued, "Though I swear I did not know that it took effect on you. I would not wish it on my worst enemy and certainly not on the worshipper of chaos, I _swear_."

They studied each other for almost a minute. Tony with his arms resting on the chairs back lean, legs spread left and right from it. Loki half sitting, more leaning on his elbow on top of the armrest.

"Ok," the inventor answered, "ok. So, is this normal? That I get all chilled whenever we're… close and you…"

"That I have black quicksilver in my marrow? As much as it pains me to say I wouldn't know. You are-- I've never before had a worshipper of chaos, much less myself. This is as foreign to me as it is to you."

"And you guys don't talk about this stuff? Have some records in the royal library of awesome? You _do_ have a library, right?"

As Tony asked that the god's face practically began to beam,  
"Of course we have a library! It's size alone could rival your tower and it's knowledge knows no bounds!" but then his face fell a bit and he started to frown,  
"Except for worship. I have searched for years in it's depths for answers as for why I had no worshippers, when Thor seemed to gather them in the dozen a day, but never found a single word about it. Even Od-- Even the Allfather would not give me answers."

Abruptly but with a smirk Loki sat up, ramrod straight, with slightly sagging shoulders as it he had something incredibly heavy on them, one arm outstretched holding an imaginary sceptre or some staff and imitated a deeper voice.  
Tony had no doubt that this was 'Odin' and grinned.

"Hear Loki," he said, "Chaos is not a thing that is easily admired. Be patient. Soon you will understand. One day you will learn to control it and use it for good, then--"

'Odin's' speech stopped abruptly when Loki heard the inventor laugh and stopping only made the man allow himself to laugh louder.

It took Tony a minute to realise that Loki wasn't as amused, instead he had slouched back against the armrest looking rather blank and vaguely hurt, but before the god could say anything he answered the unasked question of _What the hell is so funny?_ while pouring himself (Loki had waved it off, he did have some manners, yes?) a quick drink at the bar and dropping back onto the sofa, mirroring Loki's position.  
Back against the armrest, feet pointing at the god.

"Did he seriously say that? I mean, _control_ chaos? Use chaos? Is he for real?!"

A careful smile spread over Loki's face, "Yes, well what seems logical to you was a foreign concept to Odin as it seems and I was young and not entirely fixed on what chaos meant myself so I tried, but failed anyway. At some point I simply accepted that I would never gain any followers and didn’t even realise I had you, until--"  
Loki's breath hitched and unconsciously pulled his legs closer to himself.  
"Until I fell into the Void and the worship flickered out."

"What happened?" Tony asked quietly, not sure if he wanted to know but hell, he had to at least ask, right?  
But Loki just looked up to him; the same, tentatively clueless face Tony wore himself.

"I hoped you could tell me, I felt- it was rather distressing. That small feeling of worship winked out and after, well, I don't know how long to was, it could have been moments or years, it came back all at once burning like wildfire in Muspelheim."

"It burnt you?!" 

" _No!_ No not that time. Can you tell me what happened?"

Not that time. Not that time? When could-- oh. _Oh._

"It did burn you when you were in prison, didn't it? About a month ago? And you didn't use the worship against the pain for a week. Am I right?"

The god's nod was all Tony needed to know to guess what the first fallout had been.

"In the Void. When you lost it in the Void I was dead. In Afghanistan, a cave. This-" Tony tapped against his chest, against the casing of the reactor, "got shoved into my chest there to keep me alive but my heart stopped for a while during the operation. Just three and a half minutes, but yeah. Afterwards I got special treatment and--"

Tony stopped as he saw Loki's questioning look and took a deep breath, closing his eyes to focus for a moment.  
He never had talked to anyone about Afghanistan, why was he telling _Loki_ of all people?! 

He didn't want to think of it. H  
e didn't want to think about drowning again and again in dirty water and piss.  
About the desert heat,  
the heat of the improvised forge  
or the coal that was about to be shoved into Yinsen's --

 

Something cold touched Tony's ankle and made him flinch hard out of the memory, eyes flying open and stared at Loki who pointedly looked out of the rain splattered window at the glowing city.  
Acting as if he didn't notice him just having a flashback but the cold of the gods foot pressed against Tony's ankle (casual as if it had been there the whole time) made for a great focus point to pull himself out of it.  
Cold.  
Cold was good.  
Cold was not a fucking desert.

"Special treatment." Loki echoed with barely hidden distaste, "I'm assuming that..."

"Yeah." Tony answered, "Yeah. Not as bad as you, they still needed me to build them the missile. Never did of course, fucking idiots. I built the suit and blew them all to hell."

Now Loki looked back at him, "The Iron Man? You built it in a cave, under those conditions?" and Tony's smirk seemed answer enough since the god mirrored it straight back. 

"Impressive."

"Yeah, well that's me." 

 

A bare moment of shared silence an ear splitting thunder cracked through the sky and Loki looked up at the ceiling with a familiar expression.

"I guess you are not overly fond of what follows?" Tony echoed Loki's words, though the god smiled at him rather warmly.

"Fonder than I used to be."


	8. Thor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor arrives, Mjölnir doesn't and Odin is an ass for telling him that Loki is Aesir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, sorry that this one took so long, I just couldn't make it work for some mysterious reason.  
> But here it is, the slowpoke chapter 8.  
> You might notice that I boosted the total chapter number up _again_ and being realistic it'll just continue rising.  
>  A part three now has a plot.
> 
> Aaaand *drums*
> 
> I've got a beta! *trumpets*  
> The amazing, fantastic and wonderful Kate volunteered as tribute!  
> Still have to ask her if she wants to be linked.  
> And thanks for being so quick with the cleanup!  
> I adore you!

Thor, who flew through a window Jarvis had thankfully opened in the last moment, had been openly staring at Loki from the moment he entered.

The god looked tired and beaten, but the first things Thor did was to greet and then carefully brush snow and ice from the feather cloak he had worn.  
Mother's falcon cloak to be exact.  
Where the frost came from he could only guess, considering that it was summer in New York.

Loki himself stood a few meters away from his not-brother, shoulder to shoulder with Stark, their backs to the stairs that led to the man's workshop and undoubtedly his armors as well.

He wasn't afraid of Thor.

Of course Loki wasn't, but before Thor's arrival Anthony had started asking what his motives could be, and the possibility of the Allfather sending his real son to collect Loki again, made the god shudder.

He won't go back.  
He will never go back, and if it meant he'd have to spend the  
rest of his days bound to Stark and therefore Midgard, so be it.  
But he will never, ever again set foot onto Asgard or into its king's reach.

"So, Thor what brings you here? In the mood for a vacation? You _look_ like you could need it." Anthony asked with a playful smile on his face that looked disturbingly genuine, but so it had seemed during their own first meeting.

"My brother." Thor answered, stepping closer with the cloak carefully in his arms. "Loki, what has been done to you? Why are you wearing the appearance of a Jotun? Is this Odin's work as well?"  
Thor sounded unusually weary, instead of his normal obnoxious loud boasting and it took Loki a moment to realise why.  
Or at least the most probable reason.

His brother wasn't carrying Mjölnir.  
Why wasn't his brother carrying Mjölnir?!  
What happened that could _possibly_ separate Thor and the hammer that would have grown onto that oaf’s hip if he wouldn't carry it in his hand most times?!

This was-- this was worrying. Actually more worrying than the sudden and unannounced appearance, really.  
Stark seemed to have noticed it too, the man truly was more perceptive than he makes people believe.

Loki threw Thor a sharp grin none the less, "Did you not say that the Allfather informed you of my true origins? Than I am the son of Laufey and everything was a lie?"

Thor shook his head, dragging a hand over his face while he let himself drop into the armchair, opposite the sofa they had originally rested on.  
Again a proof of exhaustion that Thor had never shown before, not even after the worst or longest battles.  
"Then he lied again. He said that he found you abandoned after the war and took you in, but spoke of you as Aesir. It wasn't entirely sound in hindsight, a rather brittle omission but _then_ I was blind."

Loki scoffed and he paced behind the sofa, too restless to sit just now, unlike Anthony.  
Though the man had been working all day while he himself just slept.  
Then there had been the ... _issue_ in the night and he remembered that the two days before he'd had Anthony's bed for himself.

Though the man was still very much alert even if quieter than expected. Attaboy Stark.  
"Have you suddenly been gifted with sight, brother dear?"

And again Thor shook his head.  
"The trial was based on unproven information as it has never been done before. The court was not consulted and when I tried to visit you at your officially assigned prison cell you weren't there."  
Thor shifted on the armchair running his hands over the feathers, throwing Loki a look of guilt.  
"For a moment I believed you had escaped, but there was no evidence of you ever being in it. The guard told me that you were kept in the lower dungeons and I tried to find you, I _swear_ I did Loki!  
I barely passed the second gate when Odin appeared and took Mjolnir from me for I was ' _meddling with things beyond my capacity of understanding_ '.  
The second time I was just outside your door and he banned me, thankfully not as a mortal, to Jotunheim. Supposedly until your sentence was over, but mother found me a few hours ago and told me where you were, lending me her feather cloak and now here I am."

Loki was still, very still, staring at his brother only to drop into the sofa cushions.  
Not sofa cushions as he found out when the inventor yelped and tried to jump up from where he sprawled.  
The god though decided to stay just where he was, letting the warmth of Anthony's socked feet under his thigh ground him.

"How long where you on Jotunheim?"

"For almost three months. Loki, you need to know that I was wrong about the Jotnar."  
There was urgency in his voice and a shine in his eyes.  
Waving away Loki's scoff.  
"It has nothing to do with your heritage, brother. If it wasn't for them I would not be alive now. Please hear me out."

Suddenly Stark sat up, again trying to pull his feet from under Loki.  
"Sorry to interrupt your heart to heart, but I've got a video conference to run with the London branch in five minutes, and I need coffee. Loads of coffy-- let my feet go Blitzen!"

He didn't.  
Instead the god kept his hand clamped around Anthony's ankle, just because he could of course, not because he wasn't ready to face alone whatever his brother had to say.  
Not at all.

Though why would Anthony want to leave?  
Shouldn't an alien race interest him as a scientist?  
Or perhaps he didn't care, for he had his own specimen to examine.  
Yes, that must be it.  
It would also explain why Stark pretended to care.

The thought tasted bitter on his tongue, but it was quite obvious in hindsight.  
"Stark, it is almost three in the morning, how could you possibly have a conference. If this bores you this much then just leave, no need for excuses."

The man looked at him for a moment, and suddenly there was a pull in his bones, a flicker of pain in his head and the arm that had been broken.  
The worship calling for his attention.

"Timezones, Lokes. Ever heard of those? It's ten to eight in London and I'll have to be online god knows how long. And I think they'd rather talk without two norse gods in the background."

No Loki hadn't heard of the zones of time before, but he couldn't see a a lie on the man, or feel unease in the worship.  
Wondered if he even could if it was there.

Suddenly Loki realised, and wondered how he could have forgotten about it.  
Anthony's worship.  
Even if he was interested in examining Loki, he was still the god Anthony had chose to worship. He was the one to wield the element Stark adored.  
And if Loki was honest with himself, the thought was reassuring.

So he slowly let go of the ankle, giving Stark the freedom to stand up.

"Hey Thor, how about we reschedule our little chat for the morning, ok? Lokes here was up all day catching up on earth-tech, and he's still recovering so he needs his beauty sleep. And you look like you could need it too. Go ahead, take a guest room and a shower and I'll have a big breakfast waiting tomorrow. Sound good?" Anthony said, stretching out a hand as if to seal a pact, or help Thor up.

For a long moment Thor looked at Loki and the trickster felt that he should probably give his host a medal for perceptiveness.  
He really should stop underestimating him at least, something easily done with the disarming smiles and seemingly carefree personality.  
"We would talk in the morrow then, is that acceptable, brother?"

"It is. Even though I am not your brother and you know it well, Thor."

"I grew up with you as my brother so you will always be my brother, Loki.  
It does not matter to me what name or skin you wear." Thor answered, grabbing the hand Stark held out to him with thanks starting to pull himself up.

Loki had to suppress his laughter and hide the resulting smirk behind a hand when he saw Anthony entirely misjudge Thor’s weight, almost faceplanting into the armchair himself, though all but a moment later the two were in the hallway on their way to the guest rooms.

He wondered if he still could use Stark’s bed without seeming childish, but then decided that he didn't care what Anthony might think.

After all, the room was the coldest, the mattress was the softest, the duvets the fluffiest and the bed the biggest in the penthouse.  
Besides, the man seemed convinced that this conference would take a long time.

Loki looked outside the windows, barely able to make anything out between the darkness and the smudges of light on the glass, distorted by the rain that kept pouring down.


	9. A Grey Smoothie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some attempted fluff, and Tony get's mentally flayed by Thor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> It took me way to long to get this down, and no wit isn't even Beta'd because I'm an impatient asshole, sorry.  
> When/If Kate beta's it I'll update, but it'd quite probably just be spelling.  
> I seem to be covering less and less time in my chapters, it's a bit frustrating.
> 
> Chapter 10 is half done, so this time it _won't_ take a month to update.  
>  Kudos and especially comments are always welcome, just as useful criticism!

It was something around six thirty in the morning when Tony could finally, finally drag himself into the dark, cool bedroom and fall onto the mattress.  
Shirt, slacks, socks and all even if the material stuck to his skin with sweat.

As expected that conference had been a complete waste of his time which he could have spent sleeping.  
What he didn't expect was to land on something fairly hard, angular and growling.

"Lokes?" he groaned while rolling onto the other side and peeled off his clothes, down to the boxers he wore. For once not even in a sexy way, because _fuck_ if anyone touches him right now he's going to melt or catch fire.  
Probably both.

"Problem Stark?" the duvet pile grumbled, Loki undoubtedly going by the annoyance that accompanied his name.

"Don't care." he just answered, because nope, he didn't care.  
All he cared about was falling asleep, but the heat in his chest somehow prevented him from shutting down his brain and his bathtub was all the way over there somewhere on the other end of the en suite.  
Tony was pretty sure that if he got up now he'd just fall over anyway.  
So, no sleeping in a cold bathtub either.

Damn.

Then a thought shot through his mind because, wait, was he about to willingly let someone he barely knew, who was titled a trickster god of lies and chaos, sleep next to him in bed?  
Where he was vulnerable?  
When he _knew_ that Loki had all his mental facilities intact?

Tony rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling, lit blue by the arc reactor.  
It was too warm to properly worry about it  
Technically he let Loki sleep in there for over a week, just that the god had been absent. So, did it really make that much of a difference?  
Right now he probably was safe. Even Loki should be able to see that it was beneficial to stay here while he healed and didn't have his magic.  
But what when he has healed? What when Loki found a way around the magic buffers? What when he suddenly irrationally decides that he'd be better off without Tony and just --

Suddenly he heard the god next to him shift and a blanket landed on Tony's head.  
"Cover up, Stark, I have no need for you to get ill, it'd be inconvenient."

"Too hot." he just answered, flinging the blanket onto the floor.  
It had been nice and cool but Tony knew better, that a minute under it and then he'd just get even hotter.

Tony's thoughts got interrupted again by something cold touching his cheek and oh _god_ that felt great!  
And yep, that was-  
Man that was Loki's hand and he should care about that. He really should but, fuck all.  
The guy was so perfectly cool like an icepack but dry and not cold enough to make his skin numb.  
If he could use Loki as a body pillow?  
Well, probably not.

"You are burning up, Anthony." he heard the god say and felt Loki's fingers move to his forehead, pressing a palm to his temples and partly over his eyes, and Tony couldn't help himself but let out a quiet groan as the cold soothed the headache.

Loki suddenly wrapped his (perfectly _cool_ ) arm around Tony's middle, pulling him under the duvet, and Tony was just about to protest, to push the god away because _what the actual fuck_ , when he felt cold press all along his right side and Loki's face against his neck.

"Your pillows are too flat, Stark. Don't move or I'll use your organs to make a new one."

Well, usually Tony would protest.  
His pillows were perfectly fine, and if he didn't like his bed then Loki should just go and sleep somewhere else.  
Except that nope, that wasn't going to happen.

Tony could feel how his skin cooled down from the outside, then there was this worship thing cooling him from the inside and he didn't even notice himself falling asleep.

Or Loki's smile when he did.

____________

 

After Tony woke up only a couple of hours later from an uncomfortably warm bed, covered in too many duvets, the first thing he did was to shower, dress and make a run for his workshop and caffeine.  
He had four hours till the "real" work would call with another meeting.

Meanwhile Jarvis kept feeding him information about anything he needs, from the weather which was sunny 71°F, to an attempted Stark-patent robbery by Hammer which was boring.

Not boring was the discussion that was going on in the kitchen, which's video feed he had just opened.

Loki and Thor were sitting left and right from the kitchen table with what must be at least half of his fridges contents between them.  
Both looked stressed and not particularly happy with the topic or each other.

"Repeat that."

"Loki, listen, I know it sounds farfetched but I was there, I befriended many and I owe them my life. Please you have to believe me."

Tony tilted his head and kept observing Loki's obvious discontent. The god was subconsciously scratching the markings on his arm again, Thor didn't seem to notice.

"Do we have a summary of Thor's story, J?" he asked, turning the video feed back off and flicking through his project list.

"We do, Sir. Mr. Odinson got banished to Jotunheim by his father for attempting to free his brother Loki. There he got found by a group of Jotun, brought as prisoner for attacking civilians to the city of Utgard to have the owner of the land decide how to proceed with Thor as it is custom there. This Jotun's name is Loki as well, I suggest we'd refer to him as Utgard-Loki for clarity.

Utgard-Loki, after initial miscommunication, explained to Thor that _their_ people have never been part of the war, and cleared up important matters of Jotunheim‘s political situation and how it got distorted by Asgard or it's perspective.  
In the end Thor accepted the conditions for his stay and the local laws, learnt about the customs and lived peacefully with them for two months, and would have continued so until Heimdall was allowed to bring him back as Odin had suggested, unless he'd find other means of transportation.

In the third month though Laufey, warmonger and father of our Loki, found out about Thor's whereabouts and extracted him, taking Thor to "his" side of Jotunheim and having him pay for what Asgard has done to "his kingdom".  
At this point I should mention that Jotunheim has no direct government or Kingship in any way, but seems to work more like a commune.  
After Loki's release into your care, their mother Frigga had an opportunity to get Thor out of Laufey's prison and give him the means to travel with her Falcon Cloak which we saw yesterday, to ensure his own and Loki's safety for they cannot see him."

By now Tony had his feet on the worktable, and stared at the rotating hologram of.. something random.  
He was tempted to just listen to the original story, directly from Thor, just to ask him all about Jotunheim but he doesn't have the time for that, and he can't allow himself to push his schedule back more than he already had in the past two weeks.

This little summary alone threw up so many questions, most of them about Jotunheim. About their politics, their laws and customs, about their technology or absence there of, about the planets size, location, atmosphere, gravity, flora and fauna.  
About Asgard and history that is written by the winners in general.

There was one thing though that Tony was quite sure about, that Loki's 'monster' problem should be solved rather quickly with the evidence of kindness from the Jotun‘s. Though perhaps the god would have to see it for himself first.

What still annoyed him like a thorn in his side every time it came up was the matter of Odin.  
A seemingly omnipotent king who lies about identities and takes them away at a whim, tortures his children for lashing out, being mind controlled and sticking up for the other.  
Just what the fuck.

Secretly it made him a bit glad that Howard had just ignored him most of the time and not been an asshole.. much.

 

Two hours later Jarvis called Tony out of 'Sciencespace', opening the workshops door and letting Thor in.

"Hello Stark, may I interrupt your work?" he asked, and sat down as Tony waved him to the leather sofa.

"What is it point break?"  
Tony had a fair idea what this was about, so he quickly grabbed drinks for them both and sat down next to Thor.

"I wanted to ask how Loki really is. He ensures me that he is well but I like to think I know him better."

There was a moment of silence while Tony cocked his head.  
"Not sure." he then truthfully said, "His body is healing quickly, his magic is still bound, and even if it's not as cold as probably should be, he seems fine."

"And his mind?" Thor asked carefully, face falling when Tony shook his head.

"I don't know him good enough to judge that, Thor, that's your job. Up until two days ago he thought being here was a dream. He hates to be alone or the dark, he won't touch his horns and scratched the markings on his skin."

"He hates his form of course. Even knowing about Jotnar what I do I'd hate it. Having my body changed against my will."  
Thor sighted heavily, then took a swing from the bottle of beer Tony handed him.  
For a moment both got lost in the idea of having their usual faces ripped from them, replaced by something hated and alien.  
Though a moment later he felt Thor's heavy stare on him again.

"You share a bed."

Tony pointedly did not choke on his scotch.  
Was Thor going to smite him for 'defiling' his brother? For using Loki in a 'weak state' or something like that?  
Nothing had happened, not even remotely, but when people share a bed it's usually implied.  
Oh hell, please don't say Asgard is homophobic?  
"It's nothing, honestly Point break. It got a habit while he wasn't all there. Like I said he doesn‘t like to be alone."

"He never did." Thor answered, thankfully calm and with a soft smile, "When we were young we used to share a chamber, a bed even if he didn't feel well."

"That a bad thing?"

"I don't believe so, Stark. Mostly I am surprised that you trust each other enough to rest together."

He wasn't sure if Thor had deliberately aimed for that, even to himself, exposed nerve, or why Thor'd think that Tony was a distrusting person. So he did what he always did, plaster a big disarming 'what-could-you-possibly-mean' smile on his face.  
"Aww, you care. What's the worst that could possibly happen? He's my god, and I'm his worshipper, right? Besides, gotta help the --"

"Stark." Thor interrupted him, looking a bit too serious for Tony's taste.  
"I know that you are not a trusting person, and I am aware that we are the only ones in this entire tower. There aren't even servants, besides that spirit of yours, who has been aiming at me the moment I entered the tower, and is right now. I know you did not trust the director, or any to the others. You hardly ever leave your front open and even less your back. All while wielding your words and charm like lance and shield, attacking before you could be caught off guard. You, Stark, are not a trusting, loving, open person, you have been betrayed too deeply, too often for that. You‘re a soul of math and a heart made from gears and cogs wrapped within so many layers of masks and armour that I wonder if any of us have ever seen _you_ at all."

Just right now Tony couldn't tell what his face did, he only realised that he flinched hard under Thor's hand that squeezed his shoulder in a way that was probably supposed to be reassuring, but felt as if Thor was reaching under all those layers of armour and reducing his core to paste, and he barely realised as he hissed "Out."

The hand left him and he heard heavy steps behind him. Heard Thor leaving, but then they stopped again.  
"It was not my intention to unravel you like this," the god said, "though you are very much like my brother. If I hadn't had millennia to study him, I'd never have realised it. You are very convincing. So please believe me when I say I am not an enemy. Your enemy is my father, when he finds out that you care for my brother instead of punishing him. Something is going to happen, Stark, in Asgard and the realms. Something not even my mother can foretell because of an unpredictable force."

There was silence for a moment, and Tony turned around, seeing Thor standing in the door. One hand on the frame but body turned to him and the workshop.  
"She believes it is Loki." the god said quietly, though entirely focused on Tony, "Though I have a hunch it is you."

With those words he turned away and left the room, bellowing a quick, "Good day, Stark!" over his shoulder, letting Tony sink into the sofa once the door hissed shut.

He was cold, freezing cold and didn't want to move, delete the whole meeting with Thor from his memory, but he wouldn't. Was Thor really this good at reading people?  
Fuck all, were he and Loki really _that much_ alike?!  
He was aware that there were parallels, but ..

A few minutes later something bumped into his shoulder, making him almost jump from the seat, but it was just dummy.  
There was a suspiciously grey smoothie in his claws and Tony answered with a warm smile to the bot's encouraging or questioning whirr.  
With Dummy, he was never quite sure which it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone will probably tell me now that Thor is super OOC, but I believe that he had millenia where something like doubt didn't exist to him, not in matters of family, war or who the enemy is. NOw within an incredibly short time he get's 'betrayed' by loki (Thor movie), kicked out of asgard and turned human, had to change his mind about humans, get back to asgard and fight his brother, then believe him dead, then Loki attacking NY and stabbing thor (betraying him again), finding out it wasn't loki after all, trying to get loki through the trial and out of jail, _and_ having mjölnir taken away, getting banished to jotunheim and realising they're not the enemy, getting tortured and... yeah. I think that'd be enough within a year or two to chanage even thor and killing his happy go lucky mood, for now atleast.
> 
> Or maybe he's just sick of pretending to be stupid. (which he really isn't, just look at thor two)
> 
> Anyway, please do send suggestions on how I could have handled him (or anything ) better, I'm always happy to learn!


	10. Sea of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki learns what it feels like to have an Arc Reactor in his chest, and other stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8 or 9 were bad? Hey, atleast I came to like them! This one though still bothers me.  
> Sorry Kate for rewriting half the thing after you betad it! I'm sorry really, but i really hated the part with Tony and i didn't want to bother you further so...
> 
> Expect some bamf for 11.  
> Again, comments, critics, kudos everything is welcome!
> 
> The 20 chapters is more of a guideline than a rule.

Thor had told Loki this morning what had happened to him during his banishment to Jotunheim and their mother's vague warning about change to come, which even she couldn't predict.

That alone was quite unsettling.  
There had never been anything important Frigga hadn't at least caught glimpses of, so even if she wasn't allowed to talk about it directly, she had always helped to steer them into the right direction.

To think that there was something completely out of her sight? Out of her reach, even?

A chill ran down his spine at the thought and he felt tiny shards of ice, almost snowflakes fall from his hands.

 

Letting out a long sigh, he wiped them off on his grey trousers and dropped down onto the living room sofa again, looking out at the horribly sunny afternoon weather reminding him of Asgard.  
Even if New York wasn't remotely as modern or golden, it was quite a magnificent sight, especially considering how small and weak humans were.

Just a few hours ago Thor had left for Anthony's workshop, only to return shortly after and excusing himself, since he had to ensure that Odin wouldn't let his bad mood out on Jane to punish him further.

The fact that Thor actually believed what he said had caught Loki almost like a punch. Suddenly realising that, no, Thor really didn't trust his own father anymore.  
That all Odin has done now even found his golden son and finally stripped the childish blindness from Thor as well.  
Had he still his magic and didn't feel this physically and mentally raw he'd rejoice, for Odin couldn't possibly withstand them both, and Asgard's greatest fool would finally fall from throne and grace.

Now though? Now the idea of a possible war made him weary.  
By all means, he wasn't defenceless, not more than any other Frost Giant with the combat training of Asgardian royalty, but he still did not feel comfortable with the idea.

 

As Loki started to consider dinner he realised that Anthony was still gone, or gone again without saying so much as a goodbye.  
It was untypical comparing to the past weeks behaviour.  
Though looking at it from Stark’s perspective, there were some major differences between then and now, weren't there.

 _But does it really have to be that different?_ he found himself thinking, it would be nice to not just find physical rest here, but to be and feel safe, to relax.  
Rest his mind, his spirit, his being as well.

Loki has not forgotten how that worked, even if he did not have the opportunity to do so in a long time.  
None the less, Stark probably had enough work to do after the week of inactivity while taking care of Loki, so the god decided that he might as well nap in the hope of getting rid of the headache he--

A sudden realisation made him stop in his mental tracks.

_Headache._

_He_ had a headache.  
In all his time here he hadn't felt a thing, not a speck of pain and now he had a headache?

Loki knew that all this pain-free time was thanks to Anthony, so what did it mean that he now felt pain?

The man's worship certainly still was there. He could feel it warm and silver to his mind, though now that he concentrated on it there was an obvious disturbance by emotions such as distress, frustration or even anger?  
They felt like knots in a bundle of silken silver threads, pronouncing the cyan edge that still remained and interrupting the flow most irritatingly.  
Now he also had the nauseating feeling that Anthony was in trouble and he certainly did not like that.  
The feeling and the trouble.

Loki called out for Jarvis as he sat up, growing colder with stress as the Artificial Intelligence did not answer instantly.  
There was something off, there had to be!

"Mister Laufeyson?" it came from the ceiling, but again Loki felt like something wasn't right. Something was off in the voice.  
It sounded more like a machine than it usually would.  
His headache was getting worse and he could start to feel the pains from his horn and arm as well.

"Tell me what is happening, Jarvis." Loki ordered, trying not to waver or fidget when the answer took even longer than last time. Though after almost ten seconds it came.

"It does not concern you Mister Laufeyson, we are currently taking care of the issue."

That was all the confirmation Loki needed to be one hundred percent sure.  
There was trouble, or at least something big going on.

Which ever it was, the first thing he needed to do was find Stark.

So within a few strides he was at the stairs to the workshop, the place where the man spent most of his time when in the tower and practically flew down the steps.  
Loki caught himself at the glass panels, involuntarily leaving delicate ice flowers behind, to stare past the barrier that separated the working area from the stairwell and what he saw almost stole the god’s breath.

 

Engulfed in a sea of light, formed out of holographic images, texts, cubes, windows and bars stood Anthony.  
Although stood is most definitely the wrong word, for the man seemed to almost dance as he kept twisting and moving to reach other bits of information.  
Selecting it, dragging and resizing, throwing it over his shoulder only for the object to burst into shards of light.  
There were series of numbers and equations that seemed to cling to the man’s arms, and Anthony’s hands, which were inside white spheres (undoubtedly more options to interface with the hologram), wouldn’t hold still for even a moment, constantly tapping and manipulating.

It was when Anthony turned his upper body rather oddly to hit a bar diagram with his elbow, that Loki noticed the man wince and just after that finally realised that Anthony was also rather sweaty.

Had it been anyone else the god would have scoffed about such a weak body, with Anthony though he knew that it was different.  
It was the Arc Reactor overheating him and from what he could guess stress only seemed to increase the effect.

Dropping down to the floor and leaning against the hallway’s window Loki decided that he wanted to do something against that.  
If Stark could influence his body, it should be possible the other way around, right?

With practised ease Loki folded his legs and took his usual position for meditation, mentally reaching inside him and focusing closely onto the worship.

He was tempted to try and undo the knots of distress in the silver stream, but instead circumvented them and shoved them aside to look for _something_.  
How hard could it be if a mortal could do it?

How hard indeed.  
It took Loki almost five minutes to realise that he should search for the Arc Reactor in the region of the heart.  
Of course, there he found it in an instant.

Dry burning heat seemed to scorch his skin, his ribs, his very insides, making Loki gasp loudly (too loud for his liking) and wonder how a (regrettably) mortal could possibly cope with that.  
At the same time that made it quite obvious why Anthony did not scorn close contact or a Jotun’s company in his bed.  
It must be incredibly relieving and for that alone Loki decided that he would not deny the genius that privilege (what had absolutely nothing to do with him hating to be alone).  
Said genius was now looking around rather confused, undoubtedly feeling the temperature change in his body.

Loki couldn’t help himself but admit that it was rather exhilarating when Anthony spotted the god and seemed to genuinely, openly smile for the first time. Only to continue his work of course.  
Unfamiliar with the interface and majority of symbols Loki could accept that he would only be in the way, this though, this he could do without much trouble.

So Loki closed his eyes and let himself drift, ignoring the burning and instead enjoying the quicksilver trickle close to his core.

 

Some time later there was sudden loud swearing, which was audible even through the glass, that woke Loki from his meditation, only to witness the usually blue interface of the holograms that surrounded Stark rapidly turn red.

Just a moment later Anthony turned to him and yelled something that got drowned out by the deafening noise of shattering glass behind Loki and the next he was airborne with an arrow in his thigh and darkness taking over.


	11. "You Starks"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J is having a word with Fury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, sorry about the wait?  
> But all the drawing(tumblr tag #bidrawstuff) somehow made me unable to write?!  
> And after what, six entirely different starts I'm now giving you guys this, because it's the most....sense making one of them all.
> 
> Writing (for me) new characters is such a pain.

A sudden buzz in Fury's right inner coat pocket made the man almost jump.  
I was his personal cell phone, a number that almost no one had, and everyone knew only to call in emergencies.

Sending a last glare into the direction of the glass cage and it's habitant he strode out of the cage's area and back to his office.  
Right now that god was useless to him anyway.  
Fucking aliens.

The moment the heavy metal door shut behind him, he had the phone in hand, flipping it open and staring at the screen.

Instead of the usual greyscale manuals, black letters glared at him on a red background.

_"Loki will arrive at the Stark Tower Helicopter platform within the next hour, without further harm being done."_

"Or what?" Fury sneered to no one in particular, though just a moment later he almost dropped the phone out of reflex.

_"I come with agony."_

"Mr. Stark don't be childish. You can't take out a whole organisation on your own." he growled in answer, and as expected a new message appeared, though Fury couldn't help but blanch a little at it's content.

_"I can, will and do a great many things. Aside from that, neither am I alone, nor do I have an assigned gender, therefore please relent from calling me Mister."_

The A.I.. Fucking hell this was the A.I. writing to him, not Stark.  
(It Identifies with Stark's name.)  
The fucking A.I. had found and hacked his phone and threatened him, and SHIELD, and therefore all his employees.

"And what the hell do you think you'll do if I don't?"

_"I'll abuse your imagination for that. 58minutes."_

He had to do something. He had to think of something.   
There were four unassigned Jericho Missiles in the US alone, each of them belonging to Stark and undoubtedly controllable for the A.I.   
What was his name? Jarvik? No, it was Jarvis.  
Fury groaned and dropping into his chair at the desk he massaged his healthy eye.  
What a mess, what a complete and utter mess.

As if it wasn't enough that the Council was sitting in his neck about this, monitoring his every step (well, not quite every) and only waiting for him to do something that could hint to betrayal (like shooting down a jet that had a nuke loaded, or handing a god back to his owner). 

Of course he knew Stark was Loki's owner, he had seen (and heard) the footage, and to be honest? If this all went the way _he'd_ wanted, he'd have left Loki with Stark.   
For one it's keep that ass occupied and if this All father (A whole _world_ under one ruler!) decided that, well, he was hardly going to start a war with Asgard about a prisoner (practically slave) and who he'd belong to.

But no, the council had insisted that they needed Loki. 

That they needed Loki for _experimentation_.

Fury could feel his intestines knot themselves at the thought. He would do, and has done a lot of things for necessity.   
For information.  
For materials.  
For other people's and his own lives and security.

But never for experimentation.   
He _hated_ experimentation on people, no matter who they were or what they've done. 

_"55 minutes."_

Wait.   
_Wait!_

"The enemy of my enemy, is my friend." Fury said, hoping that the A.I. took hints. But then it was raised ('Raised'? Seriously Nic?) by Stark, and that guy grew bored of stupid people too fast to keep a half arsed A.I.

_Our enemies are blind and deaf._

"Fan- fucking -tastic." Fury grumbled, and he couldn't suppress a snort when promptly _"It is, isn't it?"_ appeared on the screen.  
Though these lines were quickly replaced by others.

_"You don't have much time. Sir wasn't the one to give you the ultimatum."_

"You‘re going against his orders?"

_"I do not take orders."_

Oh. Ok, that uhm- that wasn't necessarily reassuring.  
Fury carefully suppressed a shudder, though then he remembered that this thing, this incredibly not-human person had been created by _Stark_ , he did.   
Sometimes he liked to forget (suppress) that fact that Stark was a genius. And then things like this happened and he had to admit once again, that even as far as geniuses went, Stark was a class of his own. Creating an entirely sentient being out of numbers.   
Because if it does not take orders? Then that means it does it because it _wants_ to, and it that wasn't a scary thought then what was.

_50 minutes._

"Ok let's get that over with. I know you're in the SHIELD database, so feel free to cross reference with that, but you probably won't find much. Being Director of SHIELD or not, at the moment the World Council is making a lot of pressure on my people and use them like they're their fucking trained dogs. And believe it or not, you don't want me replaced with some Council-brained monkey when they find some reason to replace me."

Fury took a deep breath.

The Screen was blank, but still red.

"I don't want Loki here. Shield has no right on his punishment even if I'd like to let him bleed for the deaths, but I've seen the footage of his arrival, I know that Stark is practically his owner, and I'm hardly going to start some stupid strife with you Starks _or_ Asgard about that.   
The council though wants Loki for experimentation, and I. Don't. Like it."

_"You wish for us to forcefully steal Loki back from you. It might harm the organisation's name though if played well cannot be pinned to you."_

"You got it." that A.I. was scarily perceptive. No wonder Stark kept him around.

_"What to we gain?"_

Gain besides Loki? There wasn't much he could offer.  
Besides...

"Tech division had said their attempts to hack you are slowing you down."

A blank screen was as much of an answer he'd ever need for that.   
A.I. or not.

"I could assign a 'special unit' that is great at competitive sudoku and writing false reports. But then I don't want any fucking causalities."

_"That can be arranged. Commander Hill is about to enter your office, she seems concerned. Good Day, Director."_

That moment the door crashed open and Hill stormed in.

"Director, have you lost your mind to attack _Stark_?!" she practically yelled at him, stopping instantly as the spotted the phone in Fury's hand and the untypical smirk on his face.

_Concerned, my ass._

"Come on, Commander," He said, seeing realisation dawn on her face as he walked past her, a hundred tiny codes and routines revealing his plans to her, "let's play."


	12. Jarvis Airways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is getting a bit confused, I'd say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since 11 was rather short and I let everyone wait so long, I actually (surprisingly) got 12 done and though I might as well post it, since it's short too.  
> And I just dug myself another (plot?) hole. Why do I randomly write stuff like this?!!

"... that he turned?!" 

"Because it's fucking obvious!"

"Clint, we have no proof that-"

"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN! Stark took _Natasha_ and six other agents!! That- That _thing_ was in his Tower for a week! Running around fucking free, eating his fucking food, wearing his god damned clothes! Hell, Loki fucking _smells_ like Stark! I wouldn't be surprised if that sick fuck had a little _fun_ with his 'prisoner' too while he's playing host! How can you-"

"Barton."

"-not see that-"

" _Clint._ "

"WHAT!"

"He's awake."

Yes. Yes he was awake.   
Or at least Loki thought he was, not that he wouldn't prefer this to be a dream, since there were nicer things to wake up to, then a throbbing thigh, scrambled thoughts, nausea and shouting.

The god did his best to get off his back and sit without throwing up, feeling how his body was oddly heavy and sluggish to react.  
He should care, he should be on his feet already trying to get out of this glass cage. But nothing happened.

Why wasn't he with Stark? 

Wait-- Wait! 

_Glass Cage?!!_  
Why was he in the Helicarrier?!  
How did he get from the tower to the heli-- Stark.  
It was Stark, it had to be. Nothing else made sense. 

And Thor had still warned him about something being wrong between Stark and the Avengers!   
His stupid oaf of a brother had _warned_ him and Loki had tossed it into the winds, because no, his worshipper Stark wouldn't betray him. Why would he.

He could suddenly feel something coil inside him, the worship. That treacherous thing that had made him trust Stark so easily. Childs play.   
How _foolish_ he had been!

But if it was, if Stark really betrayed him, why did _it_ feel so discontent.   
Hot liquid silver running through his bones and cyan burning coals trapped in his chest. Nothing as erratic, sudden and boiling as betrayal seemed to trigger. More like the hundredth day of summer without rain, where the smallest spark will gradually lead to an all consuming inferno.  
It felt like wrath.  
And this wrath wasn't pointed at him.

_Deep breaths Loki, calm yourself._ he thought and finally took an actual look at his surroundings, still feeling confusingly mellow, considering his position.  
Though they _had_ poisoned him after all with that vial- arrow-- thing.  
Oh right, he had watched Stark work when the window behind him exploded and then he fell, getting hit by said arrow only to black out moments later. He could only hope that they had treated Stark better.

The room, hangar? Of the glass Cage hadn't changed much since his last stay in it. Except that--  
Oh, right.   
The Captain and Barton were there, standing in front of the controls and staring.   
Or glaring daggers in Barton's case.

"Hello Loki." the Captain says rather awkwardly and there was silence for a moment.

"What have you done to Stark!" -- "What have you done to Antony?"  
Hawkeye and Loki asked at the same time, throwing the other a questioning glare but Loki fixated on the soldier who seemed more reasonable at the moment.

"What do you mean what have _we_ done to Tony?"

"You attacked his tower. Of course you have done _something_ to him! I may be poisoned but don't try to take me for a fool!" at the thought of someone hurting Anthony again (What had the place's name been? Afghanistan?), he felt frost seep from his hands onto the ground.

"Why would you care!" Barton hissed as Rogers shook his head.

"We've done nothing to him. But yes, why do you care?"

Truth or lie. Truth or lie. Truth or lie.  
Loki narrowed his eyes at the Captain and stood up.  
Neither.  
"I have no reason to beli--"

A sudden tremor running through the ship made all three of them stop in their tracks and look up. The two mortals each with a hand on their ear, giving each other a _look_ , both getting their weapons ready.  
There was another tremor, which turned into a downright quake followed by the deafening sound of an explosion that was uncomfortably close.

Just his luck, why did they have to be attacked exactly _now_?! Why not yesterday? Why not somewhen else when he _wasn't_ here!

 

Without any warning at all everything suddenly got plunged into absolute darkness and Loki held his breath automatically.

Silence.

Two.

Three.

Four.

And everything got illuminated in a dim red light.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, you are currently witnessing a small scale demonstration of what is going to happen, should you attempt another attack on Mister Stark or any of his direct and indirect property. We will be leaving you shortly to resume your schedules as planned. Good Day."

Loki felt himself stunned to silence the moment he recognised the voice as Jarvis's, and his guards seemed quite the same.

"Stark's _house_?!" he heard Barton ask, but Rogers just shrugged and looked slightly distressed. 

"What do we do?" 

"Guard Loki. We can't do-" the archer started to answer, but snapped his jaw shut the moment he heard a faint clicking sound.  
A second later the hatch in the floor, under the glass case opened and Loki felt himself go pale. 

He had no way out.  
Jarvis was controlling the ship, why would the voice do that? He had done no harm to Stark!   
He hadn't-   
He had lead the attack _to_ Stark.   
They had attacked because of him, and now Jarvis was going to get rid of him to ensure his maker's safety.

That thought burnt.  
The thought that Tony was part of this, burnt.   
The thought of his only worshipper, of someone he would have dared and called friend, betraying him made him feel unusually cold.  
It felt like ice sickles boring into his chest and the former beautiful black quicksilver freezing over with the coldest ice.

Someone gasped in the room, it was neither of the three and a mere moment later he saw Barton fire an arrow into the empty space in front of the console. The arrow got deflected by what seemed like nothing, though a moment later the air seemed to waver, like it did over fire and then there stood a very slim and sleek, grey version of the Iron Man suit.

"Welcome to Jarvis Airways," he hears Stark say, as the man flipped open a cap on the console, "We hope you enjoyed your flight."  
and hit the big, red button.


	13. Freefall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jarvis is the voice of reason, i swear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though I'm a bit in a bad situation, I somehow managed to finish the chapter!  
> It's not quite 2k, but close enough!
> 
> Enjoy!

So, this was it.

He was a dead man.  
The God of Trickery, Chaos and Lies betrayed for one final time by the last person he had dared to trust.  
That he'd have dared to maybe even call a friend, and oh how that thought burnt.  
Why, why did he always have to be betrayed, why was it always, always someone that was important to him.  
Someone he thinks trustworthy upon the connection they shared.

But Loki didn't really have time to think about that. To reminisce about all the times people had used him for something only to discard him later. Hunt him for sport.  
Trying to kill him for convenience or pleasure.

He didn't have time for it because the giant glass cage he was falling with (falling _in_ ) was starting to tumble. To spin over and over, gaining speed at the meter, at the second.

For a moment he could catch a glimpse at the helicarrier and saw that one of the engines was out of order, sputtering thick black smoke and red flames, but then the cage threw him over again and Loki lost sight of it.

 

The god still couldn't grasp why by the nine Stark wanted him dead this badly.

If it had just been the A.I. Loki could have understood it, he had indirectly, with just his presence. put Stark into danger, but the man himself?!!

While he was well aware that Odin had just dumped him onto the mortal without asking or giving any ways out, it didn't make sense.  
Stark had allowed him to stay in his tower.  
He had taken care of him.  
Dressed his wounds.  
Taken his pain.  
Soothed his fears without mocking.  
By the nine, Stark had _brushed his hair_ and let him rest _in his bed_.

That man had been the best thing to happen to Loki in decades, if not centuries!

_Anthony was his worshipper._

 

And if Loki only paid the smallest amount of attention he could tell that Stark still was.  
There still was the feeling of silver black matter enwrapping his innards, perhaps even stronger than before.  
Admittedly it felt rather cold and desperate, miserable almost but it was _there_!  
How could Stark possibly-

 

For the second time today glass exploded around Loki, destroying the cage and adding some more cuts to the ones he already had from last time, momentum catapulting him out of the structure into the open air.  
This time is was true free fall, cold wind biting at his skin for all but a moment until his damned Jotun skin had acclimated to the temperature change.  
The god twisted himself, having a look at the sky that surrounded him, trying to order his senses and with a ring in his ears that was barely audible over the howling wind he could see nothing and no one who could have caused that.  
The Helicarrier was far above and to his left, and besides that there were no other vessels in the sky that --

Loki flinched hard when he felt something cold and metal suddenly grab his left arm, pulling and pressing him against -- against the Iron Man armour?

Stark?!

It was Stark!

It was Anthony in the sleek grey armour that Loki had only seen moments before!  
And he held Loki with utmost care, one arm crossed over Loki's back a metal gloved hand at the nape of the God's neck, the other wrapped around his lower back and hip.

Quickly, so Anthony couldn't accidentally drop him, Loki wrapped his legs around the armour's waist and arms around it's neck, almost burning his hands at the repulsors on the back that undoubtedly were stabilizing their flight path. Metal arms holding on to him just that bit tighter.

 

He had been wrong.  
Oh by the nine he had been _so wrong_ it made him almost feel sick!  
He had felt it, hadn't he?  
Loki had felt it the whole time that Anthony cared for him and that he was his worshipper and how had he been able to dismiss that?  
Yes there had been anger, distrust, desperation, and even misery, but none of those had been pointed at him.  
Loki knew by now how it felt when some of the emotions through the worship were pointed at him.  
(He hadn't forgotten the pain he had gone through only weeks ago, a deliberate attack to everything and everyone that could possibly be connected to Stark. Unluckily including Loki. But it hadn't been pointed at him directly, he knew that now.)

How had he been able to ignore that so easily?!  
For god's sake, the man had stood between him and his _brother_!

 

Moments later Loki got surprised by the Armour landing on a small yacht he hadn't even noticed until they were on it.  
He quickly let go and stood, leaning against the cabin wall, still faint from poison, thin air and his rapid heartbeat.  
Watching Anthony remove the suit per hand, pulling and twisting certain parts which in turn opened the armour and allowed Anthony to strip the machinery off him, but the man's movements were jerky and Loki couldn't quite get a look at his face.  
Something was off.  
There was electricity in the air as if something was about to happen.  
And The god wasn't sure if it'd be in his favour.

 

The second Stark was done dismantling the suit, Anthony turned to him and Loki was quite sure that it _wasn't_ in his favour.

Stark didn't seem all that angry, no.  
The man was _livid_!

Loki couldn't make himself move, just standing there like a deer in the headlights as Stark prowled towards him, slow but so, so deliberate and controlled like a predator that was about to rip something apart.

Like he was about to rip _him_ apart, and all Loki could do was stare and hear his own pulse in his ears, mildly disturbed but utterly entranced by the power the man could radiate if he only ever wanted to.

"You!" he heard Anthony hiss, "What the fuck were you thinking!"

"I-"

"Do you think this is a joke? Do you think I don't have enough _shit_ going on without you?"

"I didn't-"

A fist slammed into the wall next to his head and Loki couldn't help himself but flinch. This was blind territory. The Worship in upheaval with _so much_ that it was impossible to discern something. Anything.

"Shut. Up." Anthony growled, face only centimetres away from his, and he could actually feel hot breath fanning over his face.  
In his admitted confusion Loki tried to get some space between them, lifting his hand, wanting to push Stark back but the man just grabbed his wrist and slammed it against the wall with surprising strength, making Loki decide that: Maybe he shouldn't move.  
Maybe he shouldn't try to manipulate the tension.  
Maybe..

"You are going to _listen_ to me, right now. Because this probably won't be the last time shit like that is going to happen."

Maybe he was going to do exactly that.  
Loki gave a light nod.

" _You_ may be the God of Lies and Chaos, but tattoo this on your fucking forehead so you don't forget it:"

All of a sudden a hand buried itself into Loki's hair, pulling it until he leaned his head to the side, feeling Stark press his lips to his ear, growling: "I. Do. Not. Betray. People."

And before Loki could even gather himself enough to answer anything he felt teeth digging into the muscles at his neck, turning all that pent up, indecisive tension into sudden, fierce arousal.

He might have groaned, but Loki wasn't entirely sure about what noise he had made, but it must have been _something_ as it made Stark move away from his neck and stare into his eyes almost confused.  
Just almost.  
So he ignored the mild pain of pulling against Stark's hand in his hair, to press their lips together.

Loki felt something within his chest tilt, quicksilver turn pleasantly hot, cursing through his bones and by the noise Anthony just made he could guess that something quite alike had happened to him.

Anthony took a step closer without breaking the kiss, pressing the god into the wall with his body, a thigh grinding torturously pleasant against Loki's crotch and --

"Sirs, if I may interrupt. Right now is hardly the time for pleasantries. Miss Romanov is about to break out of her confinement and there is a quinjet en route to our location, containing the other Avengers, which seem rather unhappy." Jarvis' voice suddenly cut through their heavy breaths, making Anthony take a step back, but looking a lot more pleased with the situation then he had moments ago.

"Was that really necessary? Couldn't you have waited a minute?"

"No it couldn't wait."

"You're such a tease, J"

"And you love it, sir."

At that Anthony snorted and pulled the still slightly baffled god into the cabin.  
"I _love it_ when you talk dirty to me."

"For you sir, always."

At this point Loki couldn't stop himself from laughing.  
Those two, in all seriousness were some of the possibly most powerful people on this planet, hunted by a large government organisation, and here they were, throwing innuendo's at each other.

Though when suddenly all the boring wooden panels inside the boats cabin turned into screens and the table into a miniature hologram projector, flowing the room with a blue glow, Loki seriously wondered. How long had the man anticipated fleeing from SHIELD?

Carefully observing Anthony as the man entered some lines of code, Loki wondered if this had all been planned through, when suddenly a loud beep pulled him out of his thoughts.

A Beep.

A Click.

"What the fuck Stark, we said no casualties!" the director's voice boomed through the room, making Loki and Tony both cringe, and the later quickly adjusted the volume.

" _One_ engine Fury, don't tell me some idiot tripped down the stairs and broke their neck." the inventor snapped back, though looking slightly worried.

"I'm talking about my agents you fucking kidnapped, Stark. We have no more life signs on them. What the _fuck_ did you do to them!"

"And here I thought something _actually_ happened. It's all fine, just the signal you lost, not the people. They're safe."

Listening to them two _bickering_ (because there was nothing else Loki could call this, these weren't serious threats) he realised that Stark hadn't just blindly attacked SHIELD, but that there had been some sort of truce. Almost as if there was a common enemy? Which was why this had been staged as an attack. But who could be a thread to an organisation such as SHIELD?  
On one of the screens Loki suddenly found a video feed of a red haired woman about to rip a panel out of a formerly smooth white wall.

"Perhaps, "Loki interrupted, startling Anthony and the Director out of their conversation for a moment, "You could say something to your Widow, so she does not have to rip her cell apart any more?"

Whirling around to the screen Loki had just stared at, Anthony seemed to realise that, yes that might be a good idea.

"Hey Fury, give me some Code-Speak? Pink Tutu?"

"Shut up Stark and put me through to her. I know you can."

"Yeah, sure." Anthony answered, pressing a few symbols below the video, "Uhm, hey- _woha_ don't break _that_! Fury wants to talk to you. Everything's secure by the way, no toilets listening in."

Toilets?!  
On the video feed they could see the Widow stepping back, seemingly searching for a camera but not finding one, staying still and silent.

"How long is it going to take you to put me through, Stark." the Director growled, making the Widow look up almost startled. Just almost.

"You _are_. This is Stark-tech not some teleshopping crap."

"Fan-fucking tastic."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Pink Tutu", i sort of stole that form another fic?  
>  ~~There is a frostiron fic SOMEWHERE i read AGES ago, with tony and loki living through a time loop (covering the timespan of the avengers movie) where they have to work together to stop something from happening. And At some point Fury gives Tony the code "Pink Tutu" what probably means something like "timeloop" whatever the hell (i don't think it got ever exactly written out~~ _what_ it means).  
>  Anyway, does anyone know which fic I'm talking about? I really liked it but can't find it anymore!!!  
>  **It's from "say goodbye to yesterday, I got it, thank you!**
> 
> "Toilet" -> that one is totally your fault Yuki_mura12
> 
> "Tony doesn't betray people"/ "I.DO NOT. BETRAY.PEOPLE:" -> Pinlie, that's your rambling, landslide creating comment baby.
> 
> See? Writing comments, even short ones inspire me and keep me writing! They might even make it into the story!  
> So: Comments please and thank you.
> 
> Also anyone want to be my "plot-beta"?


	14. Magenta!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jarvis ships it, Tony's in the "zone" and Loki is having a crisis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After two months of silence and various "this time I'm really going to write!"-posts via tumblr ( #bid's chaos of worship ) I can finally present you chapter fourteen!  
> It's not an excuse, though if anyone wonders what i've been doing all this time, well I've got a new host-family, felt tortured since my tablet-pen vanished (and still is vanished), fell out of the frostiron fandom into the Harry Potter fandom and back into the FrostIron fandom, and found out i'm just an hour away from the ocean!
> 
> What has to be said is that without Stopwatch-plz from tumblr&ao3 ( http://archiveofourown.org/users/immiscibility/pseuds/stopwatch_plz ) this chap still wouldn't exist! she helped me with what both of them would do, because what i had planned was....rubbish. So, everyone applause for stopwatch-plz and send her love and cookies! You're the best, Plz!!

Tony has been in the 'zone' for the better part of an hour already since booting up the ship's holo-lab.

He was talking with a surprisingly pleasant Fury (as pleasant as he could ever be) sorting through things they might or might not be able to do about the World Council's control over SHIELD; and witnessing the incredibly amusing enlightenment of Roger's and Co about Loki's whereabouts and 'why the hellfuck' Barton wasn't allowed to put an arrow into the god's eye socket.

Being the multitasker he (sometimes) was drinking iced coffee, checking the firewall and tower's safety (again) and guiding Dum-E, Butterfingers and U through the process of mending the wall Romanov had all but torn apart happened at the same time.  
He really wanted to get this shit done as quick as humanly possible, so he could stop Loki from doing whatever made his skin feel as if it was covered in grime, and stop those remote feelings of self-loathing and disgust and desperation that washed over him again and again, thankfully not affecting Tony's own mood.

Just when he _thought_ everything was done, (or as done as anything ever get's that involves the bots) and he was in the process of closing all the open windows, hoping that he could finally get some sleep and food (and that conversation with Bambi), something caught his eye.

"Hey Jarvis?"

"Sir?" 

"Why are the energy readings open from when Loki tried to mind-- Oh. _Oh!_ ...Oh fuck!"  
With a loud groan Tony slapped his hands in front of his face and banged his head against the hologram table. Hard.  
 _He_ was an _idiot_.  
A complete and utter _moron_ for not thinking of that earlier!

The genius almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to pull the energy readings into a 3D diagram, while shouting for Loki at the top of his lungs and flicking through a folder to bring up other readings on magic and how it is influenced by vibranium.

Seriously, he was retarded for not thinking of it earlier.  
Someone ought to punish him for being titled 'genius'.

The door to the holo-lab banged open as Loki rushed inside.  
"Anthony?!"

Without looking at the god Tony didn't notice the (rather well hidden) worry, or the pulse of cold (longing, rejection, denial) when the genius just pointed to the table to the far right of the room.  
"Put your arms on the table Lokes and don't move. Jarvis, I want measurements on the micrometer, no make that nanometer, you get me? It's going to be tight enough there's no place for errors!"

"I haven't done any error's as that since my learning phase." Jarvis calmly commented but measuring non the less, asking Loki to put his arms into different positions.

"You didn't tell me that you needed an expansion. That's an error." Stark chided absentmindedly, running a flurry of calculations and possibilities, wiping sweat from his brow. It felt as if the Arc Reactor was burning hotter than usually, but Jarvis would have told him if that was the case.

He didn't notice Loki leave or the temperature drop just before the god closed the door half an hour later. (Or the wave of hurt-hurt-hurt from the worship, that never broke through Tony's focus.)

 

What Tony did notice was Jarvis hauling the ship onto one of Tony's private islands.  
And not just _some_ random holiday thing, no.  
In fact it wasn't even an actual island, it looked like an overly large, abandoned oil platform (flaking paint, 'rust', algae and all), placed in the middle of an artificial Stark-made pseudo Bermuda triangle.

Hidden inside the platform were (very clean and highest end) laboratories, workshops, location bound hard-drives, proto- and not-so-prototypes of Tony's probably very illegal and rather devastating inventions which he didn't dare bring anywhere more populated.  
Or anywhere people would suspect things that might be owned by Tony Stark.  
This was seriously the last place where anyone would (or could for that matter) look for the biggest earth-bound part of Jarvis' brain, weapons that could give a Jericho an inferiority-complex or the only place in the world that had the hardware to 'mass' produce Vibranium. The entire platform had been stabilised with it, and damn! He had a magic proof ~~villain~~ lair!

Without taking his eyes off the tablet in his hands he left the yacht that had been pulled up into the platform into a hangar, the genius wandered off into the depths of his very most favourite place on planet earth.

And engrossed in science as he was Tony honestly didn't notice Jarvis leading Loki to the living quarters (perhaps half as big as the penthouse, this was a place of science after all), or the anxiety and self loathing the worship steadily projected onto him.

He had an epiphany to manifest.

Because he, Anthony Edward Stark, was in the process of outsmarting and outsourcing the very one and only King of fucking _Gods_.

_And what does that make me?_ he thought, not even trying to hide the smirk on his face. 

 

Tony could barely hold himself on his own two feet when he, (sixteen hours after glorious scientific enlightenment, and fifty-three since he last slept,) not quite literally dragged himself into the bathroom of his living quarters. Air seemed to flicker in front of his eyes and he did his very best not to pay any attention at all to his body, which was burning (or so he thought, because nothing else could quite describe the pain).

He managed his clothes off his body just so, before stepping- ok ok, _tripping_ into (blissed heaven) the cool shower Jarvis ran for him. Caffeine, Stress and Arc induced sweat got washed away in moments, his fringe was sticking in his eyes, the marble wall pressed cold against his back.

Was that Jarvis telling him to get up?  
He was standing, right?  
Ah, no he was sitting.

There was nothing wrong with sitting in the shower right?  
Because, well, sitting was good. Great.  
It made the (beautifully cold) floor stop moving.  
And stuff.  
Jarvis the ass couldn't appreciate not-moving floors because he didn't have legs.

God he wants to marry the cold.

 

_______________________________________________________

 

Loki was very aware that he was being ridiculous.

Yes, it was entirely ridiculous that he had felt desired when Stark had kissed him (back) like _that_ , had pressed their bodies together, and for a moment he had actually forgotten about his blue skin, about being a monster.  
About being a _Jotun_.

Now he was lying, still rather rumpled from some hours of sleep, on a large grey sofa in some sort of living room in the belly of a rather monstrous and sinister looking island.  
Trying to shut out the feeling of what only could be described as scientific rage which was leaking through the worship, not think about how much he missed his magic or Asgard's Library. Or his chambers alchemistic and magic laboratories. Or- Or-

"Stop that!" the god hissed into the room.

No one answered, obviously.  
Instead Loki went and found clothes that fit, in a bedroom and left to shower in the adjoining bathroom.

 

Staring at the blurred, blue shape in the fogged up full body mirror, carefully drying his hair without ever touching those disgusting horns, Loki admit to himself that he was tired and confused.  
That he felt hurt by Stark who had, after shouting for him and ordered him to the table, entirely and very pointedly ignored him for the holograms that had littered the room.  
Not even when they had boarded the not-floating fortress had Stark spared him a glimpse.

The man obviously regretted the intimacy with a creature and Loki couldn't fault him for that. He understood, honestly he did.  
 _No one_ in his right mind would do something like that, not even another Jotun since Loki was just a crippled little _runt_ to them.  
Stark had obviously acted on an impulse, been swept away by the adrenaline from his attack on the Heli-carrier with Loki the closest body that could provide relief, and for all that the genius hadn't minded platonic contact with him to relieve the heating of the arc reactor, that was now obviously over too.

By the nine how he wished he'd never leant forward to taste Stark.

And Hel come claim him if it meant he could do it again.

 

Loki had been lying on the sofa again for a while now (he was not entirely sure how long) with his thoughts going in circles and his mood turning rather black in their wake, when Jarvis called out to him.

"Mister Laufeyson."

The god opened one eye to stare at the ceiling.  
"Jarvis."

"May I request your help? I am lacking hands."

Setting his bare feet on the floor once again Loki cautiously got up.  
"Why can Stark not help?"

"Sir is the problem. If you would be so kind to go to the ensuite and wake him? He's in the shower. "

"Why pray tell would Stark sleep in the shower?" the god asked while on his way, just passing through the bedroom door.

"After fifty-three hours awake, two battles and plowing through a barely explored scientific field within a matter of hours his body finally gave out, thankfully. I am surprised he did not fall asleep on the lab space's floor to be honest."

When Loki entered the bathroom the shower's water turned off and the cabin door slid into the wall revealing Tony Stark slumped on the floor, with his back again the wall and his chin against his chest, just a few centimetres over the reactor.

"What did you work on?" Loki asked while he prodded Stark's shoulder, successfully making the man blink blearily at him.

"Majical Loki projjject." Starks slurred his answer, suddenly beaming at him, "Gonna fuckin' lovit."

Though Loki didn't dare trust his ears (or a completely overtired Anthony), and repeated his question to Jarvis while hefting the genius up by his armpits, unfazed by the man's nakedness and dragged him to the chair at the other end of the bathroom. 

"I dare not say." Jarvis answered this time.

"Why ever not?" the god asked while quickly drying Tony's blotchy, overheated skin with a towel, marvelling within the secrecy of his mind about their role reversal, and worrying how long this mortal body could take the strain of it's machine.

"Because the last time I 'spoilt a surprise' he set my interface magenta. For a week. _Magenta!_ " Jarvis answered, spitting the last word with more disgust than an artificial intelligence should be able to.

The god shook his head in fascination of Stark's creation's once again while he gathered up the naked man in his arms (thankful that Jotuns, even their runts, possessed more strength than mortals or this would have been an impossibility) and carried him to the soft bed just a few meters past the bathroom door.

 

Against the crisp white sheets that Stark was lying in now his skin looked red and raw. The region around the arc reactor thin and irritated as though the man had spent hours unconsciously scratching at it until tiny pinpricks of blood gathered all around the metal machine.  
Loki could smell fresh sweat on Anthony even though the cold shower had ended just minutes ago, and he could hear the heavy laboured breath as if every intake and exhale was a chore.

Needless to say the god didn't like it. Neither did he enjoy the sound Anthony had made when he'd laid him onto the bed, as if every loss of contact with the Jotun physically pained him. It probably did.  
But as much as Loki had enjoyed resting with the man before, he couldn't take advantage of him when he was in such a vulnerable state.  
Though the reactor's temperature may cause more physical damage than his presence could cause mental harm.

Loki stood rooted to the bedsides floor for almost a minute, staring at the man in the sheets, indecisive of what he should do when Jarvis spoke up.

"Mister Laufeyson." the construct said, and his voice sounded calm and gentle, "I may not be able to tell you what Sir has been working on in the past sixteen hours, but I can ensure you that you were the sole purpose on his mind while doing so. Besides, Sir has willingly and happily engaged more physical contact with you within the last thirteen days, than he has with anyone since the happenings in Afghanistan."

"You are telling me he might not mind it."

"I am telling you he would happily indulge in whatever you are willing to offer."

At those words the god's eyes snapped to the ceiling as it had become a habit when he sough to 'look at' Jarvis.  
"You cannot be serious." he hissed, "I am still a creature, a monster-- "  
"One hour." Jarvis interrupted, "after Sir woke up and regained his mental faculties, let him and if at all possible yourself, indulge for just one hour. If you are not convinced then I shall not meddle again and leave you to it."

After a bout of silence the god answered with a short "Very well." as he lay down under the thin blanket he had thrown over the man, and gathered him to his chest, wiping a bead of sweat from Anthony's forehead and burying his nose in damp, brown hair.

'Indulge' Jarvis had said. Loki hadn't indulged in anything since he had been a child, and under any other circumstances he wouldn't dare.  
But he faintly remembered Tony saying "Always listen to J, he knows best.", and feeling Anthony stir slightly and throw an arm over the god's side, he figured it wouldn't be much of a chore to do exactly that.


	15. Indulge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Loki 'indulge'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SLASH!  
> Feel free to point stuff out that's crap, as I've got ZERO experience writing anything sexual.  
> I've tried though and find the result so far rather good to be honest.  
> Next chapter is already started, and then proper action's going to start! OOh I've waited for that all fic long!!  
> I enjoy reading your comments very much, so do send them with your honest opinion and all!

When Tony woke up he felt cool and relaxed, his head was surprisingly clear despite the headache that was throbbing in his skull, and there was cold breath fanning against his hair.  
There was _Loki's_ breath fanning against his hair, and _Loki's_ arm wound around his chest with a hand pressing against the nape of his neck, and the other wrapped around his back and waist, _Loki's_ shoulder his head was resting on and _Loki's_ heels gently pressing into his calves.  
Carefully, as not to wake the god, Tony rubbed the back of his nose against the neck his face was buried in, only to be rewarded with a fresh wave of Loki's scent.  
Old ice and snow, something that might qualify as pine needles, ash, granite and a whiff of Tony's cologne.  
The very same smell he had gotten used to smelling on his pillow at home and on his shirts, whenever Loki deemed it necessary to steal them for himself.

Tony _liked_ having the god close to him.  
He could admit that much, and he could also admit to himself that he had gotten used to it a lot quicker that he probably should. Because Tony knew that Loki would leave the moment the god had a chance to (without being further prosecuted by Asgard), and then he'd be alone again. (And he also could admit that he didn't _want_ him to go.)

With a sigh the genius pushed that thought back and decided that he'd enjoy Loki's presence for as long as he could, as Loki would allow him to.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been dozing in the presence of his god (or when exactly said god had woken up), feeling that connection of the worship like silk at the back of his mind and in his bones, enjoying the way Loki's nails scratched over his scalp, and just (for once in his life) enjoying not doing anything.

If he could he'd be purring right now, instead letting out a low sigh (almost a groan) when slim, strong fingers started kneading his neck, and of course that was when Loki froze.

But as Tony resolutely did _not_ move away or said anything (only maybe pressed even closer to him), did Loki tentatively continue, relaxing again.  
And Tony could _swear_ that the god' kissed his hair, but with brain practically leaking out of his ears, what usually only a very good orgasm could achieve, he wouldn't bet money on it.  
What Tony did realise (once Loki rolled wordlessly onto his back and he was spread all over the god) was that he was completely naked and Loki only in sweatpants.

He could faintly remember the shirt the god' been wearing getting completely soaked when he pulled him out of the shower, but he didn't really care _how_ that happened.  
The only thing that mattered was that he was chest to chest, skin to skin with Loki who was kneading through the muscles all over his back like they were dough.  
The feeling of worship cursing through his veins like super fluid helium, and he knew that his cock was at least half hard and dangerously close to Loki's, and that he was grunting and groaning into the god's neck because who would've thought that Loki'd be _so good_ at getting all those kinks and knots out of his back by digging his fingers deep into the tense muscles, making it half pain half pleasure that might actually leave bruises.

To Tony's surprise, when Loki was massaging his lower back (for the third time now) the cool hands just kept sliding down until palm and fingers covered his buttocks and _squeezed_ , making Tony let out a surprised moan, grinding his hips against Loki's crotch.  
Feeling them both hard and rubbing right next to each other was absolutely glorious, but the layer of cloth in between was tantalising, if not plain torture.

He could feel Loki panting cold breath against his ear, hear repressed moans each time they repeated the movement and silently wondered what a Jotun's come might taste like.  
Carefully licking and biting at blue skin, letting himself be guided by the dark raised patterns, making his way from Loki's neck, along the collarbones onto his chest, hearing Loki keen his approval, enjoying the press of cool hands on his hips as he sat up to properly look at him.

Because _god_ he was a sight!  
Ink black hair spread over the pillows and tangled with his horns, cheeks and heaving chest covered in a dark blue blush, lips unusually plump from where Loki must have bitten them and deep black pupils blown wide in a sea of red, staring right back at Tony with a reverence that made the man shudder with lust and awareness that his face must equally mirror just how much he- how much he _worshipped_ Loki.  
His Loki, because he _did_ , he'd do anything for him, everything! .

"You are my _God_." he heard himself say, voice ridiculously close to awe, and that must have _done_ something to Loki, because he could feel the sudden wave of worship and heat and _power_ wash over them both.

A mere moment later Tony found himself on his back, a growling ice-blue god bowed over him, wrists pressed into the pillow above him with a firm grip, legs spread wide by Loki's (finally, thankfully) naked hips pressing against his.  
There was a hand on his arc reactor, fingers gliding along the seams of metal and skin, but all that didn't matter.  
It didn't matter at all because Loki's mouth was on his, kissing him like a dying man who found life right there.  
Usually he would never let someone dominate him like this, but he didn't care, because there were fingers digging into his thighs instead of his wrists, the god's canines cutting into his lip, nicking his chest, scratching over his hips. If on purpose or on accident he didn't know and he didn't care, because right now the only thing in his brain he could think was " _My God!_ " and "Loki, Loki, Loki!" and " _More!_ "

And he was actually fairly certain that he was praying that out aloud going by the stream of adorations his god cooed right back, or the two fingers inside him, stretching him perfectly, slick with lube which might as well have come from the aether because Tony didn't even know he _had_ lube here.

But what the fuck was he thinking about lube?!  
Those fingers were gone (not gone but on his _neck_ ) and replaced with the bare touch of Loki's cold, hard cock, and the god was growling a question into his ear for what was probably the third time now.  
Instead of answering that question, which he thought might have been something about permission (as if his _God_ needed permission!), he wrapped his legs around Loki's hips and pulled himself up and Loki _in_ , making them both shout out in pleasure.  
A mere moment later they were already pushing and pulling, moving against each other, trying to give as much as they got and more - more- more.

His God's face was pressed into Tony's neck, with a horn against his cheekbone. He could see Loki's back beautifully arched over him.  
Their fingers intertwined on the pillows, their worship seemed to mingle, wash from one into another, hot-cold, super fluid quicksilver and pearling black silk, Loki's litany of adoration's hadn't stopped yet but he'd fallen out of English a long time ago, slamming into his worshipper faster and harder until Tony's could feel himself winding too tight, a sudden piercing pain in his shoulder breaking the cycle and finally _coming_ , taking Loki right with him over the edge.

It took Tony an eternity (probably just a few moments) to get his faculties back together and to re-establish who was what and where and why the _fuck_ was his shoulder throbbing like crazy.  
Loki was lying half on him but carefully angled away from the reactor, still catching his breath and flushed, his ink black hair all over the place, including Tony's mouth. How the hell did he always get Loki's hair into his _mouth_?!  
Either way, all feelings of woozy calmness got quickly washed away when he painfully prodded his shoulder and his hand came away slick and red.

"Lokes, I need to get up." Tony croaked into the general direction of the god's head, only receiving a growl in return.  
"Come on, let me get up. You went vampire on me and I don't feel like bleeding out some more. Besides, I've got a present ready for you. It is ready, isn't it Jarvis?" Tony babbled aimlessly while trying to wriggle out from under the god.

"Of course Sir. It's been done fo- "

" _Bleed_?!" Loki suddenly interrupted, kneeling next to him within a second and looking the man over, and Tony could feel the sudden oily quality of guilt and self loathing though the worship the moment Loki spotted the rather deep bite.

"Nope!" he instantly called out, sitting up and looking his god straight into the eyes, "No self loathing or guilt tripping allowed, Lokes! We just had absolutely _magnificent_ sex! You've got the Stark-seal of absolute approval and I just _invented_ that for you! There we go! Who's the hot, grinning God in my bed?"  
To Tony's endless satisfaction that actually did make Loki smile as the god pulled him into an intimate, languid kiss.  
And for a moment he had the feeling as if someone painted the word "Indulge" in large neon letters on the inside of his skull, but it was quickly forgotten as Loki pulled him onto his feet to drag him into the bathroom and take care of his stupid shoulder and take another shower.  
A proper one this time.

Well, if Loki went in it with him, perhaps not so proper after all.


	16. Self-repatterning Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A good and a very bad surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaa~  
> They're fucking again, just so just so you know, and i do hope it's acceptable again, as the last bit was received rather well.  
> There's some PTSD too, fyi.  
> I'm also really sorry for anyone whom I didn't answer, since I'm mostly online over my phone since my laptop can't really handle it. Let it be known that each and every comment is very welcome, read and appreciated!

Loki still felt loose and elated from the frankly quite amazing bout of sex they'd had, and the generous attention Anthony had downright lavished him with afterwards.  
The worship felt rich and silver, warming him from the inside as if there was a sun trapped in his chest.

Either way, for all that _Loki_ would have happily spent some more quality time with Anthony, the man was currently dragging him through the labyrinth that were the hallways and laboratories of his island. He was up to something, that much was obvious but he just wouldn't say what this 'gift' was or what it was for.  
Anthony wasn't saying anything in fact what was worry some in itself, but before Loki could ask any more questions they entered a tall, wide room tiled through and through in black, just an equally black desk in it's middle with a coffee cup on top and cuffs.  
Sleek black, silver accented cuffs were lying on the table and- no. NO! Absolutely NOT! Never again!

With an abrupt movement Loki grabbed hold of Stark's arm and ripped the man around to face him.  
"Phu ragir maur phora!" (You cowardly ant dare!) he shouted past the black knot of blind panic in his chest, and he could feel how the air instantaneous grew colder around him, the holographic suns that illuminated the room flickering for a moment. 

Stark was white as a sheet within a moment and seemed to practically jump out of his skin in fear when the god shouted.  
And while Loki did register that in the back of his mind, he never realised the man's own panic crawling up his spine like wet mud though the worships connection, overwhelmed by his own horror and flashes of those perfect black shackles in Asgard's dungeons that had held him for so, so long.

A second later thick walls from floor and ceiling snapped shut around Loki like jaws, entirely isolating him from anything in the room, not able to see or hear anything at all, for a moment he could very well believe that it _was_ that cell that-

"You need to calm down Mister Laufeyson. Please breathe. In, slowly... Out, slowly..." a voice suddenly rang out of the darkness, he knew that voice, "You are on Midgard, it is Friday 8.43am and you have been with Mister Stark the past fourteen days."  
 _Jarvis_ , Loki realised as a hologram appeared in the room with him, the familiar blue membrane shifting with it's voice, _that's Jarvis!_  
"No one here means you harm but you please need to calm down."

Loki took a few deep breaths, focusing onto the round hologram that'd become Jarvis' "face" after watching it shift for so many hour's in the workshop.  
"I, I think I am." he breathed, "I think- By the nine what was that?!"

"That, Mister Laufeyson, was something along the line of a panic attack. It may take up to another five minutes till I can release you. Please forgive me." Jarvis said, sounding absolutely unapologetic, mechanic. By now Loki _knew_ that when the construct sounded like that his actual attention was focused somewhere else, and it took the god all but a moment to realise _where_ Jarvis' focus was. He could feel it, panic cursing through him, but not his own.

"I caused him the same?" Loki dared to ask quietly, he really, really hoped that he hadn't seriously harmed Anthony. If he-

"Unfortunately you managed to hit a number of triggers at once, yes, you caused it. He is unharmed though."

Great. Just great, just his luck, Loki you stupid blundering oaf! "Can I help him somehow?"

"Are you calm enough?"

Taking a deep breath Loki nodded, "Yes Jarvis. I am sure. They are covers, aren't they? Not shackles but covers."

"For the ones you are currently wearing, yes. I will release you now. Talk to him, do not touch him unless he initialises it. I _will_ separate you again." the AI warned, but as promised removed the walls back into ground and ceiling.

Loki instantly spotted Anthony, curled into a ball leaning against the side of the blank, cube like desk, his forehead on his knees and hands tightly clamped under his armpits.  
He seemed to be taking deep breaths, but in between the god could hear him muttering numbers, no, equations.  
It was also then that Loki noticed the room to be almost uncomfortably warm, though he wasn't really sure if it was just him still being cold.

"Anthony." he carefully whispered, not moving from where he was standing, " I-"

"Loki," his worshipper called and Loki almost tripped over himself to get to his side sitting down about a meter away from the man.  
"I am never going to cage you." Anthony said, with a shaking voice and shuddering breath, looking up from where his head had been resting on his knees, "I am never going to cage you or bind you or shackle you."

Anthony didn't need to look up at him with a face so open and honest that he could practically see the horrors lurking behind those deer brown eyes, all the horrors and terrors and fears and the fierce will to live, to thrive, to _be_.  
He didn't need to see that because he could feel it in his gut, and in his bones, plastered against his skull and slithering underneath his skin.  
It was so, so magnificent to feel someone so completely, that he almost missed it when Anthony put the covers on his shackles.  
And just when the last connection clicked shut Anthony laughed, and said, "I'm setting you free."

Oh.

_**Oh!** _

With that silent click everything _changed_.  
Magic washed over Loki's senses, along the markings of his skin setting them literally alight, tingling at the tips of his fingers.  
Within a moments time Loki experimentally snapped his fingers, and the floor was covered in grass.

For a moment the god just stared.

There it was. 

Exactly the way he had wanted it and he couldn't possibly stop the pure childlike glee at the sight of one of his oldest pranks, so he laughed.  
He laughed and he spun in circles, downright dancing, changing whatever caught his eye into whatever came to mind, and he just couldn't stop grinning.

After what seemed like hours (it couldn't possibly have been that long) Loki stopped and surveyed his surrounding.  
The once black on black hologram-room now hand a brand new grass floor in every colour imaginable, a not quite illusionary forest caught in an (most definitely) illusionary storm had replaced the walls, the storm clouds of purple vapour in various ever-changing shapes rolling along the star smattered high ceiling.   
The coffee cup was now a large mouse re-enacting vanaheim's courting dances solo, while the table was an aquarium, minus the glass walls but holding itself upright non the less, with a couple of finned hornets, a singing axolotl and a blue platypus swimming around in it.  
Everything was moving and alive and out of the ordinary.  
He could feel the room brimming and humming with the very essence of chaos, and there, in the middle of it all stood his greatest achievement.

In the middle of it all stood his worshipper, grinning, open mouthed, wide eyed and full of wonder, of admiration and seemingly _basking_ in it all as much as Loki himself did.  
With a quickly murmured spell and a wave of his hand Loki's skin turned to it's customary paleness, his eyes were green, his hair straight.   
Gone were the horns and the fangs, gone were the marks and the cold.   
With a snap of his other hand, that had Anthony turning into his direction, he called his favourite armour to himself out of a dimensional pocket, wrapping itself around his body it's familiar weight settling on his shoulders

With three gliding steps and a crescendo of manic chaotic energy behind him, he crowded his awed worshipper's space, framed his beautifully gleeful face with pale hands and kissed him with all he had.   
Every inch of thankfulness and respect, every iota of his adoration and wonder and praise and- and- by the nine, every miserable last shred of love his crippled heart could produce, _everything_.  
One of the genius' hands was buried in his hair, the other was pulling them flush together by his hips, and once the man seemed to pull back for air the words "I really want to fuck your godly chaotic ass over that fish tank." were hissed into his ear, immediately followed by a hot, wet- _oh norns that was Anthony's tongue licking into his ear!_ Loki thought while shuddering almost violently in pleasure at the unfamiliar sensation.

Initially he'd hoped to bury himself to the hilt in his worshipper again, but right now he felt as if there was nothing he could deny the man. Almost nothing.  
"If you are able to disrobe me." Loki challenged with a smirk, turning his head and biting the back of Stark's nose, making the man sneeze for some odd reason.  
But then again everything in this room was 'odd' at the moment, including the checker trees.   
Loki was sure they'd been tartan in the beginning.

His attention was ripped away from the self-repatterning trees when deft finger's opened the clasps hidden under the leather chest plate, letting it clatter to the ground.  
And oh how lovely that clattering was, not at all what grass was supposed to sound like.

"You know" Anthony drawled between tantalizing bites on Loki's neck and 'ah there!' finding the clasps at his side, "I spent hours and hours gallivanting over the recordings of your armor trying to find out how it works, how it ticks. I found it quite elegant, took inspiration from it to some of my work. I've calculated every clasp, every strip of leather, every inch I could see and theorised layouts about the ones I couldn't, because you, " the last clasp to his body armor on his back was opened, "would have nothing but sleek efficiency."   
Anthony and Loki both let the black leather armor simply drop to the ground, where it landed this time without any noise at all.  
Loki couldn't help but stare in slight shock.   
No one before him had ever gotten _this_ armor off, even less so with bare hands!

"You forget, " Anthony elaborated while opening the strings of the leather tunic, "I _design_ things. I _make_ things." his worshipper murmured as he softly bit Loki's neck, making the god keen in approval as Anthony pushed the tunic off his shoulders, exposing all of his pale white skin and pink nipples to the, once again, cool air.

The god let himself be lead backwards by Anthony's hands on his waist, while the man seemed dedicated to taste every inch of Loki's exposed skin, completely ignoring his leather clad lower half to the god's dismay, even if the harsh bites and in contrast gentle licks sat his skin aflame and had hot arousal pooling at the base of his spine, making his cock strain against the tight black leather trousers.  
Just when Loki felt his hips knock against the 'aquarium' (which felt like sun warmed wood and did actually, thankfully hold his weight), and he was about to outright demand of Anthony to pay attention to his god's weeping need, the man dropped to his knees, lips barely touching the taut leather and stealing the god's breath.  
For a few seconds he did just that, kneel in front of Loki, his lips' touch so light it was tantalizing, but that wasn't what stole the air from his lungs.  
It were Anthony's eyes looking up, locked with Loki's, the hands blindly undoing the knots of the trouser's bindings to each of his hipbones, and the deliberate slow parting of the man's lips, revealing teeth that were slowly biting down onto the leather and providing Loki with delicious pressure just below his cocks head.

Loki was very, very glad he had something to hold on to because he was convinced that his knees were about to give out from this- this _teasing_.  
"Stark!" he hissed out between his teeth, earning himself a this time sharp, painful bite through the leather to his cock, tearing a moan from him non the less.  
But finally, thankfully Anthony was pulling down the trousers as far as the black boots'd let them go, pushing his hands back up along pale naked thighs until they covered Loki's ass and squeezed hard, letting the god buck into Anthony's mouth that was suddenly swallowing his cock, groaning with approval.   
And between the vibrations travelling through his flesh, and the worship that was thrumming alongside his magic Loki could practically _feel_ Anthony's lust rattle in his bones.  
The god leant back against the aquarium, closing his eyes and revelling in his worshiper's hot quick tongue and wondering aloud if Anthony'd let him fuck that clever mouth. If he'd let him bury his hands in that unruly brown hair, grip it hard to hold him still and push his hard cock into him again and again as Loki pleased until he found release, have him swallow his come to the very last drop, or maybe he'd paint Anthony's lips with it and lick it off himself.  
Loki heard his lovely genius let out a low, choked moan and looked down to him, meeting Anthony's wide, dark eyes that flicked up at him, closing when Loki brushed his finger's through short hair.

"Oh, " Loki crowed, "you want it. You want me to just use your mouth to please m-aah!" He was cut off by a moan escaping him as Anthony suddenly pushed against the hand in his hair, swallowing Loki to the hilt and down his throat making the god shudder with utter need.  
He quickly gripped the man's hair with one hand and placed the other close to his jaw, pushing him back a bit so he could easily follow with his cock.  
And for a minute Loki believed the man pliant, with his closed eyes and almost slack jaw. Thought him lost in that space in between that some people entered when submitting entirely.

But oh how wrong he was.

When Loki ordered him to suck he did, but he'd also wind his tongue around Loki's cock in the most irritatingly arousing manner. When requested to lick it's tip he'd scrape his teeth in a most painfully delicious way just along the glans, and when Loki pleaded for him to swallow him down Anthony wouldn't let him past his tongue until Loki'd practically rut against it, undoubtedly spreading his taste all over the muscle before his shaft was encompassed by blissed wet heat, allowing him to set a pace that wouldn't send him over the edge too soon.

It was when his head was bowed low over Anthony, black hair spilling over his shoulders when Loki suddenly felt slick, cool finder's brushing over his entrance, gently probing it, making him push his hips back against it, but loosing the wet heat from his cock so he- "Oh Anthony you sly beast!" Loki praised when he realised that that, exactly that had been the genius' plan from the start.

Loki wasn't exactly sure how long Anthony let him struggle between the abject need of being filled or to fill, when the man suddenly stood up and turned the god around, pressing Loki's hips against the aquarium, and for a moment Loki wanted to protest, a growl already in his throat when he felt the press of Anthony's hard, slick and oh so hot cock sliding between his cheeks.  
It didn't take long for either of them to find completion and feel the awe inspiring rush of _something_ through the worship's bond.

 

____________________

 

It was two days later when Anthony and him just finished another analysis on how the cover's could be perfected as Loki's magic was there and pliant enough for the god to bend it to his intentions but too disrupted for spells, when the ground- the entire island seemed to start shaking and an ear splitting crash boomed through the whole complex.  
Jarvis' voice was too garbled to make out his words and the displays flickered dangerously as if they were about to disperse into nothingness at any moment.

Within a minute the two were in each their respective armor, Anthony in the air already and Loki standing at one of the decks exits waiting for his signal.

The signal though never came and instead he heard the warbled shriek of twisting metal and a dull thud, prompting Loki to abandon his hiding spot and face their adversaries and- oh no, _no. No!_  
It took the god only a moment to pinpoint Anthony, Iron Man, lying on the deck only a few meters away from him. Armor slashed, dented heavily and unmoving, but what made Loki freeze in his tracks (and mind) was the sight of Odin and eight of the royal guards and his- and his torturer.

A moment later Loki regained his senses while shackled and on his knees, Odin droning on about something and his 'caretaker' tearing on one of the horns, making the god unable to look away from the satisfied, disgusting leer.

In his head Loki started praying for Hela to come claim his soul early.


	17. Mother!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone will probably want to do in my head for not making this a Loki chapter so I'll just run over there and hide behind the sofa, yes?  
> Did I mention we're looking at 21 chapters for this fic? That means only another FOUR if I keep to the chapter 'schedule'!   
> Am I the only one freaking out about this?

When Tony finally felt himself wake up, the first thing he saw was an enormous mechanical tree of pincers, blades and drills hanging over him and holding him down, and while anyone else would have shat their pants at the sight all Tony could do at that moment was sigh in relief.  
He was safe.  
He was safe and Jarvis was cutting him out of the warped mess his armor had become when Odin- fuck- oh FUCK!

"Where's Loki!" he shouted (croaked, really) out pushing against the clawed arms with which Jarvis has holding him down.

"He was taken, Sir. They... 'travelled', moments after subduing Loki, with the same means as they arrived. The covers have been removed and the shackles signature cannot be found on earth. I have to assume that they returned to Asgard." the AI answered calmly over the screeching of gold-titanium alloy being cut, "The attack happened seven hours ago, neither SHIELD nor the World Council received any readings or sightings except for slight seismographic activity which is quite common within this area."

"Fuck." Tony just answered to that, letting himself fall back, taking a deep breath and trying to relax, mentally reaching past the charring heat of his reactor for their weird worship connection and- and finding nothing... 

There was _nothing_! 

Just an acing gaping hole, feeling black and dead and just as _wrong_ and repelling as the wormhole had been.  
What did that mean?! Had Odin find a way to cut them off from each other?! Had he done something to Loki? Was the god _dead_?!

He couldn't suppress the shudder that went through him at the thought, and Tony could feel his face blanch and his mouth go dry.

Loki was _not_ dead.  
He couldn't be.  
He mustn't!

Again Tony took a deep breath just now becoming aware of the aches in his body.  
His chest felt as if it was on fire and a stabbing pain shot trough him with every breath he took, at least two of the ribs that leaned against the reactor were well cracked or broken, and his legs felt sore and swollen but what little movements he could do within the rest of armor didn't make it much worse so thankfully no breaks there. With his arms and upper body already free he felt along his skull and face, fingers coming away with flaky dry blood and a quite nasty bump, but except for a almost ridiculous number of cuts and scratches that had practically soaked his shirt (and as far as he could tell also Jeans) in blood he was ok. They weren't deep or life threatening or anything like that, but here were _a lot_. No wonder he felt so faint.  
"How long till you have my legs free?"

"Ten minutes sir. It took DUM-E a very long time to get you into my reach and then to adequate instruments. I also had to deal with another Visitor."

" Another? What the fuck!" 

"It was an unidentifiable woman, she fell through a portal in the workshop. I disarmed her shut her into one of our vibranium testing cells when she kept struggling but was thankfully still dazed from the transport. Once she recovered she began to rage and attempted to tear out the walls bare handed. Without any success if I may add. She's been pacing for the past four hours now."

"What the fuck? Ok, wait, give me a video feed. You can also let go of me you know, I'm going to stay down. Now let me talk to that mysterious Lady." Tony ordered, letting out a (very light, because _ouch_ ) breath when the press of Jarvis' arms was removed, at the same moment a holograph popped up above his head.  
The video feed showed a woman with- with _golden_ hair (because that was really the only way you could describe that shade of blond), smooth pale skin, wearing a floaty green dress that was slit at the side of the legs, revealing silver plated armor, just as it was visible on her arms and chest.  
For all that armor and the list of weapons she'd carried with her that Jarvis was displaying next to the feed, Tony couldn't help but think that she wasn't a 'warrior'.  
Not a warrior, but definitely not to underestimate if the look of barely concealed smouldering wrath on her face was anything to go by.  
Blinking at the screen that showed the com's status Jarvis opened the audio channels for him and immediately the staccato clack-clack of heels filled the room.

"You landed here at the worst _possible_ time, so let's make it quick. Who are you and what do you want?"

The woman instantly whirled around and surveyed the room with only a glance, but Tony knew that his voice would be projected from all around.  
She squared her shoulders and bellowed out an impressive array of titles he didn't catch, because his brain froze after the third word, at 'Frigga'.  
Fucking hell _this_ was _Frigga_. 

' _Hair-like-honey, heart-of-kindness, only-the-most-pristine-and-elegant-dresses-and-shawls-of-Vanahaim's-silk, I-could-never-hate-her!_ ' - Frigga!

For a moment Tony was slightly dumbstruck trying to fit this regal fury into the picture of the Frigga he 'knew', and even Jarvis stopped his (almost finished) work for a moment until a small window appeared stating what Tony already knew. 

"Mother! Loke's mother! He told me stories about you!"  
Way to make an impression, Stark.

"Do not speak of my son as if you have claim to him!" she bellowed, "You-"

" _I_ have more claim on him than _any_ of you lot!" Tony roared straight back in anger, ignoring the painful protest of his ribs, of pressured lungs, and revelling in the momentary shock on her face.  
"What mother let's her child be lied to for it's whole life? What mother let's it believe it is a monster for being from another race? Let's her child grow up to believe that no one could ever want him, could ever willingly touch him, could ever love him? Let him be 'reprimanded' by her _husband_ without trial for his 'crimes'? Let's him starve, lips sown shut, skin cut and burnt, boiled and covered in grime and acid? Let's them snap his horns? Be beaten and broken and tortured until he can't stand anymore, let alone believe it to be over?"  
He sucked in a breath as his vision began to swim when he stood up from the table and started walking towards that testing cell, the pause creating it's dramatic effect no less.  
"That was _you_."

With every word Tony could see the Queens face drain of color and her shoulders seemed to slump as if every word weight a ton. They did, not just to her, but Tony instead was throwing it off, for this had been on his mind for a while and he'd have paid money to be able to tell her exactly this.  
So no, he really wasn't feeling bad when a tear ran over her carefully sculptured features at those last three words, why do you ask?

"I was the one who saw that his attack on Ear- Midgard wasn't his doing. I was the one who tried to keep him on earth in the first place, because once he'd be in Asgard he'd be out of my reach, and from Shield I could get him one way or another. After they dumped him on my roof like a beaten piece of meat with the instruction that I can do with him what I want as long as he _must not die_ I could have tortured him. I could have starved him some more, treated him like a slave, used him as a whore. But no, I was the one who washed and sewed his wounds, put salves on his burns and wrapped up his horn, who brushed his hair.  
 _I_ cared for him, _I_ sheltered him, _I_ fed him, _I_ clothed him. _I_ was the one who shook him out of his nightmares and _I_ was the one to whom he went and for whom he asked for comfort and safety. It was me he cried on when reality caught up with him, and it was me who gave him the reassurance that being Jotun _does not matter_ , that he is no _creature_ , no _monster_. Can you imagine how many hours he's looked at me as if I was a hallucination?! How many days he didn't leave my side because if he did I might vanish, might leave him? "

Tony was now almost at the testing cell, his voice was an angry hiss and to his chagrin he had to walk with one hand along the wall because: Hello blood loss.  
"You say I have no claim on Loki, newsflash! I am Loki's and Loki is mine and _god help you_ if he's dead!"  
With more force than necessary he threw open the door to the testing cell that the Queen was in, facing her head on in all his armor less blood soaked, sweaty, manic glory.  
"Because _I_ am The Worshipper of Chaos, and _you_ will take me to Asgard!"

 

__________________________________________________________________

 

When one of Odin's soldiers (whom disagreed with the King and therefore informed his Queen of anything and everything of importance that Odin tried to keep from her) that Loki had been brought from his 'keeper' on Midgard looking bloody and beaten Frigga saw red.  
It wasn't bad enough that Odin had not given her son a proper trial, or even searched for the truth, _or told her about any of this_ , no, he'd had to send Loki straight back to the one disgusting, abusive Midgardian whom Loki presumably had done the gravest offence!

It'd taken her less than an hour to make up a visit to her brother in Alfheim, don her armor and gather her magic, slipping into the space between, burning herself a path to Midgard (to that little disgrace of a peasant _INSECT_ ) in her rage.  
What turned out to be a not-so-good idea when she literally crashed through her hastily opened portal onto a black tiled floor, weakened, dazed and disoriented.

 

Now, after several hours of pacing her anger into submission she could recognise that this- that that creature which seemingly reigned over this building had been firm in it's process of disarming and removing her into this cell, but had not harmed her in any way, not even left a scratch on her armor. And considering how effortlessly it had subdued her it was painfully obvious that she would be dead if it only wanted so.  
Instead it'd shoved her into this white on white on white cube of a cell with entirely smooth walls and nothing to see, nothing to hear and even nothing to smell! There even was no discernable light source but the cube certainly wasn't dark.

Frigga had tried everything she could think of, but for some reason her magic was blocked and the walls too strong to pry them apart, so instead she's been pacing in utter whiteness for hours now and it was driving her slowly mad, wondering if her poor son had suffered the same.

When she felt eyes on her she didn't acknowledge them, but a man's voice rang from all around the room.  
He wanted to know who she was? _Who **she** was?!_

"I am Frigga the Witch Queen, Lady Fate, Mother of Mothers, High Queen over the Nine Realms, sister to Frey the sovereign King of Alfheim and Empress of the Wild-Hunt. Who are you to dare cage one as I!"

There was silence for a long satisfying moment until the voice called out "Mother!" how she only ever knew Loki to shape that single word, making her heart clench for a second in grief, only to start racing in rage as the voice continued, butchering her son's name, speaking of him as if he _knew_ her Loki, and _oh how dare_ he!

 

But he cut her off.  
He cut her off with the pain of sharp words and a voice that carried so much genuine anger on Loki's behalf that she mentally had to take two steps back, re-evaluate and actually _listen_ , ignore the shards of guilt the Midgardian was shoving into her chest, because horns?! Lips sown shut?! Monster?! _Torture_?!

The man's voice kept his anger through and through, even when he laid out the things he had done for her son, and she knew that he was speaking the truth. A mother always knows.

She also knew that she'd only had a glimpse of the 'Allfather's' crimes and she could hear the worry in the Midgardian. 

Something that Frigga found more worrying right now though was that she could hear the Midgardian's breath grow flat and shaking and there were weak steps echoing in the background, but his voice was still a solid hiss.

"You say I have no claim on Loki, newsflash! I am Loki's and Loki is mine and _god help you_ if he's dead!"

And those words make something click in Frigga's mind, an important puzzle piece that made the picture a lot clearer, though before she had a chance to evaluate it a door behind her crashed open making the goddess whirl around in a defensive stance.

In front of her stood a rather short mortal with his _glowing (??!)_ chest heaving and one hand leaned against the door's frame. His light clothing was covered in rust colored dried blood and clung to his frame with fresh red one. There was a cut in his lip and a wound in his hair that bled over the right side of his face. And for all that his skin was practically waxen and his breath laboured, the look on his face promised everything and anyone a painful death who dared oppose him, and his voice was absolutely steady this time as he glared straight at her.

"Because _I_ am The Worshipper of Chaos, and _you_ will take me to Asgard!"


	18. Vedhrson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have a plotting Tony and Frigga, add a Thor, some family issues and a more or less sentient room, give it a good stir and then...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _I am on fire!_  
>  Just really wanted this chapter out quickly since it's more a filler. No filler is wrong, there's important stuff to fix the Odin problem, and to get to problem solving but it still feels like a filler.  
> Next chapter though *wipes brow* let's just say Tony n Asgard are beyond compatible.

Mortals were curious, Frigga decided, or at least this one. It is not as if she had much contact with any in, well, ever.

Anthony Edward Stark ("Just Tony god damn it!?"), for all that he was a short man (shorter than her even), had the demanding presence of a king, the loose, crude tongue of a common drunkard, and the bearing of someone who holds everything in his palm and the whole world on his shoulders. 

Their initial hostility thankfully dispersed quickly once they had both established their common goal: freeing Loki.  
Shortly afterwards, they both found themselves sitting at a kitchen table and drinking a hot, bitter beverage called 'coffee' as they talked about Loki, about Odin and Asgard and the realms and their cultures, _after_ the mortal had cleaned himself up and taken care of the wounds Odin had caused him..

 

"Ok, wait a moment," the- 'Tony' (it still felt odd calling him that) said holding his hands up as if to stop her, "Are you telling me that Odin _probably_ -killed his father Bor, gained the throne, stole the other planets strongest weapons and artefacts, killed whoever opposed him or his methods, practically forbid technological development, suppressed magic users and spread lies so the different races would hate each other and not ally against him?! No wonder Mister Chaos can't stand him."

Frigga knew exactly what he was talking about. She had always known but still raised an eyebrow and asked "Why would you say that?"

The mortal looked at her for a moment, just looked and then smiled approvingly, "To quote myself: Chaos is creation. Chaos is change. Chaos is evolution, and from what you tell me for thousands of years now every realm except for earth was a stagnant, rotting swamp. Hell, _I_ feel sick at the idea."  
But before she could say anything his face twisted into a frown, "Wait, if you hate him this much how did _you_ land with Odin? No, _fuck_ no you don't have to answer that."

Oh yes, the crude tongue of a drunkard, did she mention that? But still Frigga found herself smiling. It was refreshing to talk with someone who didn't need everything laid out to understand.  
"It is quite alright. I am rightful queen of Vanaheim, just a princess when he stole me to Asgard and married me for I was quite beautiful."

The man though didn't look at her and wiped at his mouth, only to smack the hand down onto the tabletop a moment later, glaring at the coffee in front of him with a hatred so throughout and menacing that she found herself leaning away from a _mortal_.

"I am going to kill him." Tony hissed, then turned to her again with a much kinder expression, "And you still are beautiful. Nothing will ever change that."

"Odin is quite a monster, though not that much, thankfully." she reassured Tony, surprised over his strong reaction to what she had left for him between the lines, and his expression quickly changed to relief and then contemplation.

"Thor?"

Too clever. "Is not as much the Odinson as he believes to be."

"He needs to know."

"I know, Tony."

"As soon as possible."

"Yes." she sighed. She knew that. She _knew_ that, and still...

 

___________________________________________________________________

 

"Ok..." Tony said, taking a thoughtful sip from his third coffee, contemplating everything he had learned about Asgard from Loki and Frigga, which was quite frankly _a lot_ , "Ok. I can work with that. Come on, I need to go to the holo-room and put it all out there."

He stood up, ignoring the throbbing pain in his legs and walked off, Frigga following right behind him.  
Tony had trouble focusing ever since he woke up and the constant buzz, the ever present pulse of _LokiLokiLoki_ was gone from the back of his mind, and the cool liquid trickle of silk was missing from his spine, replaced by oily black nothingness.  
But if one thing could help, if one thing could calm him down then it would be the holo-room. 

The _Chaos_ -Room, as they had dubbed it.

Originally Loki had wanted to undo it, because it'd stay there (literally) forever unless he undid it, but Tony had insisted to keep the room just as it was. The holograms did still work and the way you could walk in on one side of the forest and come out of the other would never stop fascinating him. Besides, that platypus was pretty cute.

When Tony walked through the door (which put him between two tree trunks, and he would never forget the two hours it took him to find exactly _those two_ to get out of the room, or the way Loki'd been lying on the grass laughing so hard, tears were streaming down his face) Frigga followed, and then stopped right next to him.

The moment he entered Tony felt like he could breathe the first time sine he'd woken up. The emptiness of their connection felt less alarming, not as consuming as before, and he hadn't noticed that he'd closed his eyes until one of Frigga's hands clamped down on his upper arm and he heard her ask in a very un-queenly voice, "What by the Norns are those creatures?!"

Blinking out of the 'chaos vibes' he realised that she was pointing at the bots.  
"Hey, don't insult my babies!" he defended Dummy, You and Butterfingers quickly, who were... what exactly where they doing? Oh, dancing with the cat sized mouse.

"You are father of these abominations?!" Frigga asked disbelievingly but quickly schooling her expression to something less shocked when Tony's glared right back at her, hard.  
What the hell was people's problems with is bots?!  
Yes, their original bodies looked quite haphazard compared to the hardware they had in Malibu and New York, but still.

Ignoring Frigga he stepped towards the aquarium, the center of the room.

"Ok, here's what we're going to do." Tony said loudly, then pointed at the blue sky, "You, daylight when it's day? Not very creative, do better, and Axolotl stop your yowling, you'll never make it to the X-Factor. Jarvis give me screens on all the official information we have on Asgard and their law system. Frigga look over it and see if we've got anything wrong. Dummy, You, Butterfingers? Keep that mouse _out_ of my coffee, understood? Yeah? Great! Jarvis get the message to Thor that one of our quinjets is coming for him and that he has to take that feather cloak with him. Tell him it's about Loki and more important than anything else has ever been _in his entire life_. Hell if he protests tell him his mom's here, and fly that quin over there, we can do without your focus at the moment I think. Anything else? No? Good."

Snatching one of the holographic screens out of the air Tony instantly immersed himself in the topic, plopping down onto a chair which he didn't realise hadn't been there before.

What he also didn't notice was Frigga staring at him, wondering how on earth a mortal had mastered manipulating Loki's magic, no, Loki's _chaos_ so effortlessly that the only explanation could be some form of strong bond. She'd have to ask Thor later if he'd heard anything about Jotun bonds, or if they can be worshipped in a stronger form than Aesir and Vanir are.  
For now she conjured a chair from the kitchen area and sat down, quickly figuring out how to use the screens by watching Tony and began proofreading the human's information on Asgard.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Thor was beyond worried as he sat in one of the seats of the quinjet and Stark's spirit refused to answer any of his questions with the excuse that he wouldn't be able to safely fly them home. So instead the god sat quietly, carefully straightening the feathers of his mother's falcon cloak until he spoke up again, a human made island already in sight.

"Odin took Loki." he just stated and after a moments hesitation the spirit answered, "He did. Please hold on, we are landing."

 

In less than five minutes Thor was safely landed and the spirit was leading him through a labyrinth of corridors and rooms, letting him set down his belongings in a hallway. 

It was eerie walking through a compound this large and seeing no one, hearing no one. Because there _was_ no one, but finally the spirit lead him to a door which opened by itself, just as all the other doors had but what lay behind was indeed quite extraordinary.

The warped forest, colourful grass and odd clouds and even weirder creatures were achingly familiar as he instantly recognised Loki's oldest pranks, tricks and bouts of accidental magic.  
But in midst it all sat Stark in a throne that also was an ash tree and his mother in a common chair, sitting close and discussing avidly with gestures and loud exclamations, not noticing him at all.

 

Thor waited for the conversation to calm down until he spoke up, making them both jump in their chairs.  
"Considering how pleased you both look your plans to free Loki must be going well."

"Thor!" Frigga called out, quickly standing up and embracing him rather uncomfortably, considering all the armor she was wearing, "I am so glad to see you well. Your father has taken Loki ba-"

"Frigga." Stark interrupted in a warning tone, and he saw his mother deflate a bit, making the god glance between the two in wonder. His mother never freely submitted to someone, not unless they were right and she knew it.

" _Odin_ , has taken Loki back to Asgard." she corrected, and it took Thor a moment to understand what she was saying, but then he forced himself to smile. He was not going to be angry at her. He had sworn it to his father. His _real_ father.

"Calm yourself mother." Thor said while he held her at arm length by her shoulders so they could see eye to eye, "Loki of Utgard already revealed the truth at it is custom to search your wrongdoer's name by blood and magic. Vedhr is quite handsome and gentle for a Storm Giant and he was kind to welcome me to his home during my residence in Jotunheim. I do not mind being Vedhrson. I only wish you would not have lied to me."

Frigga's eyes welled with tears as she threw her arms around his neck and cried, begging for his forgiveness which he placidly gave, gently holding his mother as she gave to her grief of being a 'horrible mother' as she put it.  
A quick glance into Stark's direction revealed that the ash tree (throne?) had grown large branches with thick foliage, giving them (or Stark?) privacy. He would wonder later how that worked.

 

"Come now mother," Thor encouraged after a minute or two, they had no time to waste if Loki was in Asgard, "We have your son to save."

Frigga straightened, removing all traces of her short breakdown with a wave of her hand as she bitterly said, "If he still considers himself one." while sitting down on her chair again, opposite Stark.

"He still calls you mother, and you're a good one, you know. A good mother." the man said as he tried to push the tree's branches away from himself.

"Do not mock me, Tony." Frigga snapped.

"You _care_." Stark retorted calmly.

" _Every_ mother cares!"

At this Stark stilled and just looked at them, pulling one corner of his mouth up into a lazy smirk that didn't reach his eyes at all, and to Thor it sat there like a crack in one of Stark's many masks letting them see a trickle of sadness in the furrow of his brow and a flash of pure, bitter envy in the twitch of an eye, then it was over.

"So", he said instead making the branches retreat with a final shove, but not before one smacked him into the face leaving him grumbling, "Thor, you ready to be King? No? Too bad, we need you to be one or Asgard will sink into chaos, the not good kind I might add."

Oh brother...

"Aye, I am ready Stark, tell me your plan."

"Ok, great. We, us three, are going to Asgard tomorrow, and then ..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope changing the perspective twice didn't annoy anyone too much.


	19. Hyena's Bark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of Tony's childhood, stuff about magic and the "Chaos-Room" proves how powerful it is while Frigga is so done with insane mortals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We gained another chapter and I'm sure that we'll end up with 30 instead of 22, but who cares. Knowing that we're close to the end seems more reasonable than a '?'.  
> Odin's A+ parenting was already tagged, but I feel like I need to give an extra **WARNING on Howard and Maria's A++ parenting**. More Maria, this time. They're all just completely incapable of being good for/to their children.  
>  You've got Lucryllyn to thank for the childhood part.

Tony had always been prone to anxiety.  
He knew that.  
He _knew_ that, since even if it was only rather recent that he was able to put a label to those attacks (thanks to Jarvis) it didn't mean that they were new in themselves.  
But when his and Loki's connection was created, or rather when it deepened it'd been so easy to calm down. Acting as something like a lifeline whenever he felt the anxiety might overwhelm him, just concentrating onto the cool feeling in his bones and the familiar feeling of Loki, of someone being there was so easy.

And now every time he left the chaos room (be it to go to the toilet, or to change the sheets of his bed so Frigga could sleep in it) his palms would become sweaty and his heart would hammer so hard that he could feel it's pulse against the reactor. Because the space where the connection was suppose to be was still disgustingly warped and rotting, and their plan to free him didn't make things better.  
In short: he felt awful and awfully _nervous_ , which wasn't exactly his thing to do, so he tried to think of anything and everything else besides going to Asgard, and what was going to happen if he _failed_. Because if he did then....

Tony grasped the first thing that stood out in his mind (that didn't have anything to do with gods or Asgard or Loki) and blindly pulled a memory to the surface and promptly regretted it.  
It must've been dragged forward by those words Frigga had hissed at him. By that " _Every_ mother cares!", because no, they didn't.  
His mo- Maria didn't care, and he could remember with a startling clarity the moment he'd realised that as a child.

He wasn't exactly sure what kind of event it'd been or how old he was (maybe five?), probably some charity party of hers. All he did know was that it was the _first_ time that she ever took him with her (or at least planned to) and Tony'd been so incredibly nervous (don'tmessup-don'tmessup-don'tmessup) that subsequently he'd made himself sick a moment before the car arrived.  
Maria had looked at him with those blue eyes like ice and said, lips red and pursed in distaste, "Go to your room and clean yourself. You're no use to anyone like this."  
Then she'd turned away and left through the mansion's double door entrance, her long crimson coat swaying with her steps, thick fur rimming covering her neck where she'd done up her hair, protecting her from the cold and snow.

It was then that it'd hit him in the face like a bucket of ice-water that she didn't care.  
 _She didn't care._  
Not as long as he was no use and he never was! He knew, Howard had told him very precisely and more than once how much use he was (and both had shown it many times, just as many as he had proven it by messing up _again_ and _again_ and _again_ ).  
And for all that Tony had an impeccable memory (she'd worn the hand made black stilettos she loved so much) he wasn't sure what happened afterwards.  
What he thought he remembered was Jarvis (the first Jarvis, the one he didn't make) finding him hours later, still standing in the foyer staring at the doors, on his way home.  
And what he thought he remembered was Jarvis bathing him ("You are not a baby anymore, bath yourself!" Howard had yelled once.) and dressing him ("That you still cannot button your pyjamas, not much use that genius of yours, is it?" one of the countless, faceless nannies chided.), tucking him in and reading him a story he thought might have been about a Prince dressing up as a bride because he lost....something ("I am busy, you are perfectly capable of reading yourself." Maria sniffed.).  
But that might have been one of the many daydreams, made up scenarios that sometimes felt more real than reality, he'd come up with.  
Because if Tony had a memory (even of his childhood) it was eidetic or non existent.

Instead of dwelling on it Tony wrapped the duvet around himself a bit tighter, thankful for the chaos that allowed him to stay cool but enjoy the comfort.  
He could hear the quiet singing of the axolotl again, not even remotely as horrid as earlier and the soft hum of the finned hornets and machinery in the background. There was grass whispering in non-existent wind and leaves rustling over him, where the tree-throne (and damn that thing was cool) had grown a dome of branches and thick foliage over the huge circular bed it had turned into, which now was covered in as many blankets and pillows as Tony could find.  
And for all that Tony really wasn't the camper type or a nature guy(he did know a good deal about plants though) he honestly could appreciate this, maybe because it was a result of Loki's magic that was now singling him out from the world as if it was attempting to protect him without ever being nudged to do so at all.

The first time Tony had realised that he could manipulate things in the Chaos-Room was just after Loki'd created the tartan trees, and since he doesn't like tartan Tony just snorted and said that they really should be checkered instead, which they promptly turned into, _exactly_ the way he'd imagined it.  
Initially he thought the god had heard him, but the way Loki later kept staring at the trees told him that he really hadn't.  
So whenever he was in the room alone Tony had experimented on what he could do, carefully changing everything back so Loki wouldn't notice when the god returned from his meditation on the deck. He wasn't sure what it meant that he could manipulate the magic (and yes, it still felt weird saying that), what he did know was that Loki was _so_ fiercely protective over his powers (a quip-a wall slamming into his back-a hissed "I will not have you mock me!") that he really didn't want to risk Loki flipping out over it.

But really, for all that deliberately manipulating magic was really, really awesome (and freaky), what truly intrigued him was that the room, the magic, _the chaos_ was at least semi sentient and the more time he spent in it, and the longer Jarvis observed it the more obvious it became.  
That ash tree that first had been a throne (because it was too big and to elegant, to magnificent to be a _chair_ ) and now his bed had grown by itself, without even a thought from Tony‘s side. Or the way his bots (curious little beasties that they were) had broken down from the long grass blocking their wheels, didn't have any problems with it anymore since the colourful mess just faded through them. (But Tony was still thankful that they were in their charging stations in the robotics workshop.)

 

With a sigh Tony rolled onto his back and began talking with Jarvis about more preparations that's have to run overnight and about the AI keeping his company functioning while he was away, and even if the estimate by Frigga was three, maximum 4 days, they set (more like updated) protocols for an entire year.

At some point though, long after everything important had been discussed Tony fell asleep under the canopy and the holograms they had been working on slowly faded away.

 

___________________________________________________________________

 

Thor stood with his arms crossed in front of his chest and back leaned against a tree within the 'holo-room', their bags at his feet and observed Stark.  
The man was pacing from one side to another like a caged animal, sometimes not even noticing that he was swapping the room's sides when he passed through the trees and appeared on the other end, the large white mouse sitting on his shoulder purring as he absentmindedly pet it.

He could understand that Stark had all reason to be nervous, not only were they about to travel to another realm but Stark planned to fight and beat _Odin_. Thor still couldn't figure out how the mortal intended to do that, worshipper of chaos or not, and Stark did not strike him as someone to underestimate enemies.  
But for all that he had seen the minor wounds that Stark carried from his first meeting with Odin, the mortal was supposed to be dead. If Odin had found out that the man cared for Loki and had attacked him in Loki's defence then Stark should have been killed as easily as one swats away a fly. So why was he alive? _How_ was he alive?  
While his mother and Stark had let him in on their plan to free Loki and overthrow Odin's reign at the same time there'd been no time to ask questions on _how_ Stark intended to do it, neither later when the man had run his preparations or as they all lay down to rest.

Now though they were waiting for Frigga to gather enough magic to transport them all three what might take some time, now there was nothing to stop him from asking.  
"Stark." he called once the man was in the middle of the room, making him jump and the mouse glare, "How do you intend to do it?"

"Do what?"

"Beat Odin. I have no doubt in your abilities my friend, but Odin is... Tell me, what is this so called ace up your sleeve?"

For a long moment Stark looked at him as if he was contemplating to tell him the truth or how to divert the question, a look Thor was very familiar with, but then he sighed and sat down, another ash-tree rapidly growing into a throne for the man. Thor followed his example and sat down on the chair his mother had occupied yesterday.

"What do you know about the four ways of magic?" Stark asked, leaning back in his seat and scratching the mouse (that was now in his lap) behind it's ears.  
Thor though just frowned. What did that have to do with beating Odin? Though he hoped Stark might be getting somewhere, so he did his best to remember how Loki had explained it to him when they were young.

"The first is the Element, as my storms or Loki's chaos. The second are Spells cast through a magic wielders mind and body. The third are Anchors, enchanted objects and the fourth were..."

"Gates." Stark completed his sentence. "Direct openings to Yggdasill, the sentient source of magic which can take over and manipulate them if the caster looses control over the gate or it's purpose before he or she can close it. Better known as 'Feral Magic', 'Abandoned Gates' or 'Wells'. Do you know what's in my chest?"

Thor frowned. "Do not toy with me Stark, I want an answer."

"Humour me." the mortal just said with a smirk on his lips, knowing too much that Thor did not.  
He hated that feeling, not that he wasn't well used to it thanks to his brother. But who knows, this might actually get somewhere, so he answered wryly.

"A heart?" 

Stark just laughed and pressed out a "Not quite." in between, while lifting up the top of his shirt and revealing a- a-

 

A sudden gasp behind Thor let the god whirl around just to see Frigga stand in the doorway between trees, one hand clasped in front of her mouth, looking entirely horrified.  
"What by the nine is that?!" she asked, conjuring another chair from the kitchen and sitting down before Thor could offer her his own.

Stark looked slightly chagrined as he lowered his shirt again, covering up the star like glow.  
"That is an arc reactor." he answered, "I built it. It keeps me alive and runs on an element called Vibranium which constantly flows into my body. Thankfully it is non lethal and has no side effects as of yet, except for one. Vibranium is known to absorb energy, which includes magic, and since I've got a constant flow of Vibranium into my bloodstream for a few years now, well.. let's say I'm immune to magic. I ran tests based on the different 'ways' of magic. Elements and non-physical Spells won't affect me at all, physical Spells only in an indirect manner and Anchors loose their enchantments the moment I touch them. I never got to testing Gates, but considering that we are sitting in the middle of a freshly abandoned one that just does it's thing I'm taking a guess and say that I'm not affecting it at all. I mea-"

"Wait," Frigga interrupted with a shocked, no, horrified expression, and Thor couldn't think of a single time that she had _ever_ interrupted someone while talking, "Wait, this is an abandoned Gate? _This?!_ We need to get out of here! We need to-"

" _Frigga_!" Stark almost shouted, snatching her attention again, "Sit down. It's perfectly fine, we've got a bigger problem!"

She did as Stark said and took a deep breath while rubbing her forehead, "Right." she said, "Right, I'm sitting in the middle of a _Well_ with my son and an insane mortal, and we've got bigger problems. Norns help me."

Carefully Thor leaned over and laid a hand on her shoulder in a, what he hoped to be, reassuring manner. "We do have a greater problem if you wish to execute this plan of yours, mother. Stark has no path to Asgard. " But even before Frigga could say anything to that, Thor saw the mortal's face pull into a smirk what caught both of their attention.  
A Stark that seemed to know more than two gods never seemed to end in pleasant situations.

"How about we make an experiment. Hey Yggdasill!" Stark called standing up, and even before the mortal could say anything else Thor felt the familiar oppressive weight in the pit of his stomach, something that he'd learned to heed before Loki would cast grand spells. Within a moments notice and only a look for communication both gods sprinted out of the room, only to stop just past it's threshold and witness the mortal‘s madness. 

"Take me to Asgard!" 

 

 _Drip._  
A star, like thick black oil had fallen onto the ground.

 _Drip. Plink. Drip._  
And another and another. 

Within a moments notice the star strewn ceiling rained down, trees keened, lost shape and melted trunk first, while grass lamented over wilting. The aquarium and it's contents burst into shards with a roar, all coming together as the liquid mass which covered the ground, starting to glow an eerie blue like the star in Stark's chest -turned white - turned _black_ with an unexpected suddenness, until everything bled into the mortal's shadow at a staggering speed and a deafening indiscernible sound.

For seconds Stark then stood within an unmoving and utterly silent black room, the large white mouse still in his arms was laughing a hyena's bark, as he slowly turned to stare at the gods where they stood outside the room and were watching with mild horror as the man's shadow warped and reared up from the ground.

"You are the Witch Queen's Fateless!" Frigga cried out, undoubtedly loud enough to be heard over the rising, ear splitting sound of chittering that came from the shadows all around, as Stark vanished in the crashing jaws of a black wave and disappeared together with the shapeless mass of shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I am done with this fic I'm going to write "Thor's Adventures in Jotunheim" where the adventures bit needs to be pronounced with sarcasm please.  
> I don't have a full headcanon on Jotunheim and I haven't really started doing the world or plot building, except for the bits n bobs you've already read in this fic.
> 
> So, this is your chance to influence it! Give me your Jotunheim headcanons, things you want to see Thor (or Jotuns, or Vedhr) fuck up, or not, or anthing at all you'd like to see within that fic! There are no limits and the worst that can happen is that I say "nah, sorry can't use that" (and end up using it anyway).  
> The main character is obviously Thor, his dad Vedhr the Stormgiant will have some large parts for obvious reasons.  
> You can leave ideas here in the comments, or on my tumblr (boringisdull.tumblr.org) as anon(or not) ask or fanmail, you can make a post there and tag it with #bid's chaos of worship, or you can mail me at blauherz(at)rocketmail(dot)com or send smokesignals. I'm counting on you, ok?
> 
> ((Leaving Laufey alive (C5?) was honestly an accident, but after rewatching the scene where Loki 'kills' Laufey he just vanishes (poof-cloud of smoke) at the second shot? So I just kept him alive since it actually works better that way. ))


	20. Understand what the Nightingale sings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madness prevails as even the brain of Tony Stark can't keep up with omnipresence, and an off-duty Heimdall receives an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been too long, and I really didn't know what t do with myself (or rather, the fic).  
> I'm not going to say anything more about god-or-not!tony than I already have in 19's comment section.  
> Do avoid it if you don't want to know.
> 
> I guess I should give a warning for madness. 
> 
> This chap, almost 4k or not, has been actually _properly_ scraped together in only a couple of days. I didn't even take my time to double check if I contradicted myself somewhere (I don't think I did, but....yeah, if you notice something do tell please).  
>  Either way, I really ended up liking it.
> 
> Do have fun reading and leave a comment, yes? Please. Thank you!  
> \---

When Tony had called for Yggdrasil to take him to Asgard he hadn't really expected it to do what he asked.

Not that he was really convinced it had.

Somehow, when the grass, trees and stars, when the (what he supposed to be) magic had liquefied and bled into his shadow that was thrown by one of Jarvis' holograms, it felt like it'd opened a door.   
Not a door to another place, another world, no.  
More like... a door inside himself, in his mind- his abilities, which he'd never noticed and had been hidden in his own mind undiscovered.   
It was odd enough that he had all those memories and information or just random things (himself, what he was) mentally sorted into folders and code.  
There were no _doors_.

When Tony saw his shadow rise from the corner of his eye (like a quite impossible three dimensional creature from some horror film) he just couldn't find himself freaking out or even be afraid of it, for the simple reason that it felt like it was _his_. Like that was exactly what was supposed to happen, the most natural thing in the world.   
Except that it wasn't.

What did send a cold shudder down his spine was the look of utter horror in the two god's disconcertingly pale faces, as he barely even registered the high pitched laugher of the ice cold, cat-sized mouse that was still in his arms.

Instead he felt his shadow swallow him, descending around him like a cool wave of weightless, gelatine sand, until just moments later a black tide of a thousand delicate spider's threads weaving themselves (painlessly) into his skin and tearing him away.

 

It all left him a lot more curious (and feeling _right_ , like putting on a pair well loved shoes) instead of disconcerted than it probably should. Non the less Tony did almost panic when a thought (a thought that was most definitely _not_ his), practically screamed in his mind not to open his eyes!  
He hadn't exactly noticed that he'd closed them, everything felt strangely numb and he felt as if his torso, arms and legs were too long, too flexible, almost snakelike, and obviously (naturally) the first thing he did was open his eyes. Be cause Tony Stark does _not_ listen to the voices in his head.   
Though sometimes he figured he probably should.

 

The stunning sight before him was as breathtakingly beautiful as it made him want to scratch his eyes out of his skull and _burn_ the mental image from his memory, in equal measure.

Really, the amount of laws of physic (and light and logic and _everything_ god damn it!) he's believed in that the thing broke was very disturbing. 

Ghostly white, almost see through, gargantuan, delicate, sort of organic roots that felt like living _things_ stretching into the stark contrast of black nothingness of the _Void_ beyond.

But even when Tony looked only at one the major roots which's end he could not make out, only looked at this fraction of the root work that was strewn with life itself, he could swear there were reflections of the tree's crown visible, of leafs, leafs that were _worlds_ of their own, showing him happenings of entire galaxies with a single white whorl all at once. Everything was so startlingly clear (whilst only being a reflection), that he could feel the cold of a blizzard from one planet, taste the heady wine of another's festivities, hear entire forests and rivers sing more beautifully than anything he'd ever heard, and smell the soot and ash as his hands might as well blister from heat of the fiery realm just next to him.

Well, when he says _next to him_ then that was rather vague (just as time seemed to be a vague concept here. He'd caught a glimpse of what was unmistakably earth, though they most definitely didn't' travel by horse these days anymore...right?), because the longer he looked at only the leafs in the roots, the more he saw and felt and just _knew_ , the more he could swear he was metaphysically stretching thin, tangled between roots and wood, spotting something rust (old blood) colored living- moving(!) creature that made him reel back and look closer all the same.  
Until he accidentally caught a glimpse of the real crown from the corner of his eyes, and found himself lost in the countless, endless flood of life and death and rebirth of myriads of galaxies and dimensions, the moment he turned around.

\- - -

Tony blinked for what seemed to be the first time in hours, eons? How are you supposed to measure time if you've witnessed a million dusks and dawns, and then some, but actually be in a place that has no sun (moon, atmosphere or gravity for that matter. He wasn't even sure it _had_ matter.)

That blink had given him the second he needed to look away, instead making himself look straight forward into empty blackness, wondering if there was something out there, because even Yggdrasil had to be _somewhere_.   
Except when he focused, really focused (objectively) on what he had seen it was hard not to notice that all he could sense one way or another had been touched by magic.   
Yes, magic (Yggdrasil) had touched almost everything, but looking at an untouched, magic less newborn child through a crow's eyes (and oh _fuck_ he'll never again be able to look at crows or magpies quite the same, and let's not even start with _ravens_ ) it felt detached and unreal. Until the crow flew down to it, gently tapped it's beak against it's chest and planted a tiny white thread of magic into it, connected it to the rest of Yggdrasil as (almost) everything living was. The six-legged, pelted, obviously sentient .....people (he would never again be able to call anything a creature) chittered and howled in delight, raising the just as odd newborn to the sky and began to dance and to sing. Thanking Yggdrasil for it's blessing in their utterly fascinating language, which Tony could undoubtedly only understand because he had been _in_ Yggdrasil.   
Something he hoped to never repeat, standing next to it was overwhelming enough, as he was painfully aware that he had no idea why he even was here (or where he had come from).

It was absolutely eerie to be awed and simply know that he'd never been _part_ of anything like _that_ , to know it was not common, to know that he was 'Tony', but being unable to sort out from the sheer bulk of memories (past and present, eons of everything at once, a blink of an eye to magic) if he really was supposed to just have two arms and understand what the nightingale sings.

Because under all that, under everything he was and wasn't right now, twisted throughout Yggdrasil he was where he had followed the black, silvery threads that spun through it, there was an urgency.  
A need to be somewhere.  
To be _in time_ , because he'd be _too late_ (and the flick of a memory of a white rabbit?)  
There was something burning in his chest, and rotting in his core where anything and everything but- but- _good and right and order_ was supposed to be.  
But he wasn't good, or right, order, and he didn't have order, and _nothing_ made sense! He almost wished he _had_ some order so he could reach what he needed to. Just almost, not truly.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut (or at least he was pretty sure that he did), trying to blend out the image of Yggdrasil and it's many, many places and tastes and sounds that had burned themselves into his retinas and mind.   
Fervently trying to dig in his brain, to just get anything that wasn't Hegrem, Muspelheim or Ikrit, tried to find out what the _hell_ he was doing here, because things didn't live tangled up in Yggdrasil (except for the rust colored Niddhoggr, but he wasn't _alive_ , merely a representation of something else as the tree was).

He felt- He thought to remember that his mind, his memories (himself) had been- were supposed to be orderly.  
Precisely aligned with system (sense, but not true order) in neat blue lines of code that was so familiar, but right now horribly scrambled, sprouting impossible foliage even more absurd than the world tree itself. Jarvis would never be able to run like-   
_Jarvis!_

Like a switch flicked the code (and subsequently attached memories) suddenly tumbled into place, some things still awkwardly twisted, and there were ethereal twigs and leafs and roots _everywhere_ corrupting who he was and what he thought he was.

Not giving a damn right that moment , and not in the mood to sort out his newest psychosis just now, Tony quickly opened his eyes again, muttering in a fervent mantra 'Loki, Loki, Loki', desperate not to loose his focus, no, not to loose _himself_ (whatever the hell 'himself' was at the moment) again. Hoping that it just might keep him together as he looked upon the world tree again in search of where and when 'Loki' was, not that he could remember (decipher) much more.

 

The longer he looked, searched each and every place, turning over every leaf trice (not even necessarily in a metaphorical way) the more he could feel things...missing.  
He couldn't tell what, but he kept loosing something, kept hearing things whispering and Yggdrasil taking root in his mind once again, overlaying (swallowing?) his formerly neatly interwoven (then corrupted, partly restored, and now corrupted again) memories. It just kept-

"Shut _up_!" Tony roared at the stupid astral tree, feeling tension and exhaustion converting itself into anger, as Yggdrasil shoved another vision of someone or something loosing their mind from looking at it one way or another, undoubtedly trying to scare him off, to warn him.   
But whatever it was again that he was looking for, whatever was important enough to let himself be flayed apart like this, he _had_ to find it!

 

Once untangled and exhausted he let himself drop onto one of the branches and was about to bury his face in his hands, when he noticed that _oh fuck_ they were transparent.  
That was- They weren't supposed to be transparent!  
At least he was convinced he wasn't, the only beings he's seen to be transparent like _this_ were Cïlxs and he did only have two hands (with ten fingers) after all!

With the onslaught of sudden fear of _vanishing_ , the desperate feeling of having to _be_ somewhere before it was too late (too late for _whom_? Him, or what he was looking for?) was burning in him worse than before.  
But where the hell was he supposed to be when he couldn't even figure out what he was supposed to be in time for?! (and _what_ time?!)

"Well," he thought, taking a deep (here utterly superfluous) breath, trying to think of something to finish the sentence with, "if you don't know what you're looking for, find what you need." 

_Oh_ , now he knew what the nightingales have been singing about! they were making a surprising amount of sense.  
Because what he needed, really _needed_ (besides his questionable and probably boring sanity) was to fill that gaping, rotting maw in his center that was as black as the void he could see from his seat, but indefinitely worse.  
What he needed , was what had been ripped away from him the- the...god damn it!

Wait.

_God_

His God  
He was looking for _his_ God, and he couldn't make himself remember the god of _what_ but he could distinctly remember blue skin with branch like patterns and crystal clear cold and the echo of a memory of calling his name. 

Loki.

He needed to find _Loki_!

This place was driving him mad with that constant fucking motherload of input!

Carefully he closed his eyes once again, sorting through everything (what was ridiculously much right now) that he could find past and present, connected to "Loki" he had seen while being meshed up with Yggdrasil.   
What he found were battles and places and children, spells and tricks, there was the echo of void, as the sudden image of Asgard (and no-fucking-shit it was a _disc world_!) practically slapped him in the face.   
_That_ was where he needed to go!

But he remembered that he'd lost that goal (that he'd lost _himself_ ) twice already while searching (and certainly hadn't gotten everything back so far).  
He couldn't just rummage through the worlds and timelines again, sanity twice patched together or not. He needed some form of-

He needed...

 

Tony's head snapped up as he suddenly remembered the keeper of the Bifrost that both Frigga (who the hell was Frigga?!) and Loki had talked about, who was able to see everything, and hear everyone who called his name.  
Maybe, just maybe...

"Heimdall!" Tony called a couple of times, trying to get the word right, surprised to find his throat sore and his tongue numb, "Heimdall, they said you can hear someone when called by name. I know that the- on Asgard the- the thing, bridge? Rainbow bridge...what? That doesn't even make- "  
Tony shook his head, this was really not the time to get confused!   
"I know the _thing_ is broken, but I think don't need it. What I need is a beacon. Frigga said you're on our side...Loki's side? Fuck, don't even know why there are sides. But I need to find him. I _need_ to!"  
Ok, now Tony was really confused. Talking about things you knew but couldn't remember was really fucking weird!

"Why can I hear you, but not see you?" a deep voice with an odd accent suddenly spoke from somewhere above and behind him. Quickly Tony followed the echo of the voice seeing it's glittering black (white?) thread for a second where it lead the gatekeepers magic, trying not to look anywhere else but there, just follow the humming thread. And he was pretty sure that flying (was he even flying or just bending?) wasn't a thing he was supposed to be able to do, but hey, there are dimensions in branches where he could get tangled up with so what the fuck.

"No idea. Or at least I can't remember right now. It's hard to get anywhere, too much tree."  
For a moment there was silence, and he lost the thread as it fell still in a cluster of others, feeling himself almost panicking, because he'd finally, _finally_ gotten somewhere, he just mustn't vanish!

"Who are you?" it asked, thread suddenly vibrating with suspicion, but before Tony could even attempt to find an adequate answer the words "I am the Witch Queen's Fateless." came out of him automatically (together with a memory springing forward of when he'd heard those words the first time).  
"Tony." he quickly added, frowning as he saw the thread weave into a branch, down a whorl into the tip of a leaf "I am _Tony_."

 

\- - -

 

When the Byfrost had broken, or rather when Thor had smashed the Rainbow bridge it fed of to pieces, Heimdall could hardly believe his eyes (which he had never doubted before, sight, true sight was his element after all).  
But for all that it's destruction had robbed him of his place (prison), the 'vacation' Odin had oh so graciously granted him was very welcome.

It gave him the time to serve his queen (his Witch Queen, robbed away, just as he had been) he'd sparsely had before, and stopped Odin from pestering him with questions and demands every other minute of the day.   
He just couldn't make himself forgive that tyrant, who'd robbed him of his home as a barely adolescent and in turn forced him to oversee all of Yggdrasil day and night, for centuries and millennia without rest, true rest.   
Heimdall had been one of the very few witnesses of the king's failings as a (twice foster) father, he'd seen him practically brainwash the both of them, trying to smith them into the exact shape he wanted them, and later letting out his anger on them for not being the perfect little puppets they almost had become.

Either way, now that he _could_ take his eyes off Yggdrasil and it's realms, he found himself looking harder than ever to find the Queen's youngest son, finding his thread for her every day, even if he was unable to follow it, providing the knowledge of her dearest child being alive was all he could do.

First he had not been entirely lost to his eyes but well out of his reach, lost in the Void, then shrouded by some vile magic, then shrouded by Odin's very familiar (hateful) magic, until he caught glimpses of him, meditating on Midgard looking surprisingly well (if Jotun, not that he cared about that), until the young prince vanished once again by Odin's unwanted interference.

It was immensely frustrating to him not being able to see into the mortal's island (or the mortal) when he'd seen Frigga aim for it on her destructive path (before he could tell her of Loki's wellbeing prior to the Allfather's interference).  
What worried him even more though, was when his Queen told him later (sitting at the same spot Loki had only a day prior) what had really happened to her son. Heimdall was frustrated, not being able to do anything at all, only being gifted with the sight of other realms, not the mobility.

 

Heimdall was lying in a simple tunic and leather trousers on the bed of his chamber (courtesy of his Queen), once again trying to locate Loki without success, when he heard someone calling his name from far away, barely audible over the sound of what might be an ocean.  
He looked.  
He looked and looked and couldn't _see_ anyone, but could definitely hear him!

Whoever it was seemed very off tangent. Either barely conscious or barely sane and- no wait, that wasn't the sea he heard it were leafs! Millions of leafs, of worlds, that person was at Yggdrasil itself!  
No wonder that the stranger seemed unstable. Heimdall was sure he could only stay sane looking upon it, because he'd never known _not_ to see the world tree. But he could still see no person, asking precisely that, even though he disliked speaking to those far away.  
The answer came stuttered and repeated between words that were probably supposed to be thoughts, warped by the world tree or insanity the god did not know.  
"I need to find Loki." was one of the few clear sentences spoken.

"Who are you?" he asked, curious despite himself, he rarely found anything or anyone that could wake his curiosity (Loki had been one of them, only ever letting him see the end result of some trick or prank, letting Heimdall the pleasure to figure out how he'd achieved them),  
The instant answer of "I am the Witch Queen's Fateless." was so clear and defined that hearing the Vanir compulsion behind it was not hard, even though it was Frigga's work at her best.  
"Tony." the voice corrected, sounding very confused, "I am _Tony_."

 _Tony_.  
He couldn't remember ever seeing the person called Tony, but he'd heard Thor, and (just a few hours ago) his Queen speak of him.  
How the supposedly mortal managed to enter Yggdrasil was absolutely beyond him, how he'd achieve that feat while staying moderately sane (sane enough to ask for help of him), but it had obviously happened _somehow_.

 

What really intrigued him was that _this_ was the person Frigga had talked about for _months_ if not years (as immortal it's hard to keep track).   
The Queen's ability to see fate and its 'weavings' was widely known, so when she suddenly was unable to read anyone's destiny beyond a certain point in time, always blocked someone else's fate, she couldn't see at all, she'd just named that unknown factor "Fateless", as it was each time the same, that much she _could_ tell.

These days, that 'Fateless' was almost as well known and feared by the common fork in multple realms as the King himself.  
While some hoped he might bring forth freedom, most feared he'd bring by another war, or worse: Ragnarök.

"Tony," he called out to Yggdrasil, "Follow my thread, but be wary, there might be a raven, _do not_ let it see you, or it will be an impossible feat to save Prince Loki."

There was some pointless muttering from the - what, mortal? And he honestly hoped he'd not just lost his sanity (what should have happened the moment that man'd entered Yggdrasil's space).  
Moments later (what he knew to be ages in Yggdrasil's presence, he'd travelled there only once and vowed to never return to that place) a sudden indiscernibly loud shriek cut him off from the mortal, rendering him blind to Yggdrasil for just a second as a shadow washed over it.

Something tugged at him.

Heimdall shot up in his bed, staring out the window onto the stars, something that had always improved his focus and sight, but the shadow was gone and the world tree stood there in it's usual glory, there was no noise from the mortal, no tugging at his core. 

"Tony?" he called into the branches, "Tony!" but there was no answer aside from the whispers of million's of realms.

Just when he wanted to curse that stupid mortal (another person Prince Loki cared for gone!) the light of the fireplace in his chamber seemed to flicker as the flames stuttered and suddenly went out.

The room filled with shadows, and it took Heimdall a moment to identify it as that because absence of light was not something that affected him.  
The 'darkest' thing he'd ever seen was the void beyond Yggdrasil, simply because there was _nothing_ to see.

His room tough began to be swathed in utter, true darkness, much heavier than the void, a high chittering nose rose from the silence and he could pick out the faint rustling of Yggdrasil's branches.  
Something black rose out of the darkness, stepped towards him, dripping _nothingness_ like heavily clotted blood onto the stone floor.

"Fuck." it rasped, "Fucking hell,. Give me the metro at rush hour any day of the week."

It was the voice of Tony, Heimdall realised as he watched the blackness recede as the firelight suddenly returned.

The first thought that came to him left his mouth without bidding, simply because it seemed so absurd (and because he usually was not allowed to speak unless asked, but he was off duty after all).

"You are shorter than I imagined you to be."


	21. The Second Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odin makes an announcement, the Nine are absolutely _not_ pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( I just realised the I made Natasha even more BAMF. Remember how she 'all but' tore apart her cell in chapter 14 and was about to escape? That's the same 'cell' that Frigga didn't get out of. Natasha is better than a Vanir goddess. I'll have to make Nat a special snowflake in part three.)  
> (yes 21/25, if even)
> 
> Hi! This is Joseph Fink. The real one. Honestly. Except that I'm not. Either way, here's a new chapter! It's a bit...weird I suppose, written in a caffeine coma, but chapter is chapter I guess. Have fun, and please do leave comments, even if it's just a 'boring same-old same-old' "I liked that chapter" or something like that. I really do appreciate all comments!  
> Bye

Odin sat upon his throne and had just dismissed the so called Warrior's three and Sif, denying them their request to go out and search for Thor, and if not Thor then at least Loki.

He could understand why they'd wish to search for Thor, unruly beloved little princeling he was, but Loki? That was beyond him. They must not know what the boy was or they'd beg to slay him themselves.  
But no, Odin could not have that, that was his duty as King, if not then at least as the one who brought the Laufeyson into Asgard in the first place, in the assumption he'd be able to raise him into an honourable being. Of course that plan had failed utterly, like as it seems all his plan's (including Frigga) that he invested his personal time into. 

It was then, sitting on the throne and contemplating his plans over the Jotun prisoner he once called his 'son', that a cold shiver ran down the old god's back, the hairs at his neck standing up as if electrified and he could feel the magic in his core shake as if trying to escape.

The moment of utter dysphoria vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving Odin unsettled.  
He'd only felt like this twice in his long, long life, and that was when he'd stood face to face with none other than the Mistress Death herself, and the 'incident' of Mimir's Well.

The old man frowned. No, the Mistress has not entered the realms of Yggdrasil in a long time, not with her advocates taking care of her work well, but why would magic as settled as his attempt to return to it's origin?

After contemplating a number of ludicrous impossibilities Odin shook his head and decided to forget about it.  
There were more important things to do.

Like the announcement he was about to make to Asgard, about the public execution of Loki Laufeyson.  
The trickster wouldn't get away from his rightful punishment this time.

\- - - 

"Did you feel that?" a young dwarf asked her mentor, the hammer in her hands shaking and suddenly feeling cold despite the heat of the forges around them. The oldest of their clan threw her a sharp look, just nodding for her to continue.

\- - - 

A stag broke through the undergrowth of the giant forests of Vanaheim. The elf on it's back keeping himself firmly in place despite the shiver Yggdrasil had left him with, ensuring with a pat to his chest that the scroll hidden under his clothing was still in place. Frey needed to know of this as quick as possible!  
Looking up he could already make out the bridges far up, barely recognisable against the branches.  
They were almost there.

\- - -

"But Mother, he saved me from the troll, remember?!" a young girl shrieked into her mother's chest as tears ran down her face.

"I know my dear," the woman answered quietly as she tried to calm down her child, "I would never forget."  
And she wouldn't, because when every warrior had turned away, not even listened to the pleas of a poor woman from Asgard's outskirts, the second prince, the one whom soldiers called 'not a real warrior', the one so many 'true warriors' mocked behind his back about his magic and 'womanly' attributes, was the one who came to her aid and tricked the troll into it's own demise, who saved her child from certain death. She didn't _care_ that he was a son of Laufey!

"But why would the king do something so horrible to Prince Loki?" 

"I do not know my dear."

"I hate him!"

"Hush now, the Allfather's ears are many."

\- - -

"What did you say?!" the man hissed, and Heimdall didn't like the way the room's shadows seemed to grow and shiver with the mortal's wrath. If he even was mortal anymore, Yggdrasil had warped him well, compared with Frigga's initial descriptions. And he wasn't even about to start on that freak existence of a (comparably) huge, black mouse with white eyes and green skin and (for Norn's sake) _canine teeth_ , that was lying on his very pillow.

"I said," he repeated calmly, doing his best to seem unaffected by the feeling of blackness lapping against his bare feet, "While you rested ("Reprogrammed." the man hissed.), Odin announced the public execution of Loki tomorrow night. Whatever your plan is, you will have to make haste."

Tony turned away from him and began pacing from one side of the room to another, muttering darkly, the shadows flickering, but thankfully much calmer than before as he scratched the black mouse on his shoulder under it's chin. Heimdall carefully turned and was relieved to see that no, it hadn't duplicated.  
On the other hand he couldn't remember it getting on the man's shoulder in the first place.  
Norns this was all so messed up.

Heimdall was not afraid, really he wasn't. But looking at past evidence and personal experience he couldn't help to be unsettled of what the mortal had survived, and into what it had turned him, considering that the god could not even tell _what_ he had turned into.  
This all didn't make much sense and he was missing a piece to solve this puzzle that was Tony.  
Tony, who's an eccentric genius and mentally far beyond his fellow human's capacity. Immune to magic or at least some magics, but something of Yggdrasil clung to him, even if the god couldn't tell what.  
And where was he even supposed to begin about _Yggdrasil_ , considering the man had existed through it, for a much longer time than anyone else, with more of his sanity intact than one should think possible... so long you ignored the part where he'd hissed 'shut up' at the Heimdall's sword and the mouse one too many times.

 

Heimdall could see the outrage (and glee of selected few) on the streets of Asgard for the execution of the second prince.  
They knew now what the young prince was, that he'd been disinherited of his title. Odin had called him 'Loki Laufeyson' after all.  
But even if no one had forgotten the greater and lesser pranks and tricks the prince had played on them, and for all that some people thought Loki should be punished.  
No one has forgotten the good he did!  
It was Loki who'd taken responsibilities for the common folk of Asgard, for the mages and sorcerers, who'd solved the food problem at the realm's outskirts, and so many other things that eased the realm into working flawlessly as it did.

A public execution?  
 _Any_ execution?!  
No, that was not what the folk wanted.  
That wasn't at all what they wanted for the prince, the God of Chaos!  
Jotun or no, son of Laufey or no, they all remembered him growing up, they _all_ remembered him, all of them!  
It was like this all over the realms, and even the Dwarves, aside from Midgardian's the least magical folk of the realms, felt the shiver from Yggdrasil that Tony had caused, and swore at the message of the Prince's execution despite hating everything Aesir. They may have held a grudge against the second prince for tricking them of their greatest creations, but Dwarves appreciated wit, and were very aware that it was Loki's silver words that had spurred them into _making_ these greatest creations in the first place. So the grudge was more of a formality than anything else, really.

The god could barely keep in his smile as he looked forward to Odin's face when he'd stand as executioner (for if the king demands execution he has to do it himself), and see the displeasure of his people, and the judging glares of all the nine realms, those than knew the secret passages, at his ludicrous decision.  
Every circle against Odin knew the passage ways. And the Allfather of course thought everyone oblivious of them.  
Chaos would thrive, in whatever cell he was Loki must be able to feel it. It was impossible not to.

It would be brilliant.

Except that it was _Prince Loki's_ execution, which Heimdall truly did not wish to see, and he did not know what the mortal's- the _not-_ mortal's plan was at all!  
Yes, Loki may have attacked him with the Casket of Ancient Winters, but honestly, he'd deserved it. Loki had been rightful king, and Heimdall had refused a direct order. His post must've gotten to his head. Either way, no harm done. Norns they were loud, he couldn't even concentrate.

 

The displeased muttering from the nine realms in his ears was rudely disrupted by the large wooden door to his quarters being flung open, crashing against the wall behind it, revealing none other than Queen Frigga herself. 

"YOU!" she screeched, feather cloak making her seem larger as she stormed into the room, her old Witch Queen armor growing spikes with her anger, "You insolent, reckless, Norn forsaken, rotten pea-brain of a mortal!" 

With three steps the Queen was in front of the mortal as she spewed insults and cursed his bowels to eat themselves slowly.

Tony though seemed completely unimpressed, until she grabbed him by his shoulders, undoubtedly burying her long nails in his flesh, that the shadows rose and all light in the room vanished, the man's expression hard to see, but his eyes caught an unholy glow from nowhere.  
That was enough to silence the queen's anger (worry).

"Do not touch me." Tony said, ordered, inflicting every word with an intensity that did not allow protest of any sort.

Very slowly Frigga stepped back, warily glancing left and right until she threw Heimdall a questioning look, who just raised an eyebrow at her antics.  
She looked back to Tony carefully, undoubtedly noticing the differences in him as the room returned to it's usual lighting, and the man looked at her without much recognition.  
Heimdall was quite sure she heard it too, the absence of a heartbeat.

It was the high pitched giggle of the freakish mouse in Tony's arms that snapped the silence.

"I have no idea who you are." the man said, looking at Frigga oddly, "Except for that you were part of the plan until I realised you were mostly useless, and that the reason Loki wears green is that it's your favourite colour."

Frigga was just about to answer when Thor entered the room, and Tony's face seemed to relax instantly the moment he saw him.  
"Thor! Did you take my bag? Please tell me you took my bag with you!"

It was as if a switch was flicked. The man's stance was much more relaxed, the lights bright as they were supposed to be and his face grinning.  
Frigga looked incredibly unsettled, but Heimdall had honestly expected something like this. His own mind had been slightly scrambled too after only spending moments in Yggdrasil's realm.

The older Vanir watched the two discuss their plans to free Loki in light of the execution tomorrow, which didn't seem to throw any stones into their way at all. And for all that they acted as if Heimdall and Frigga weren't in the room, Tony standing with his back to them, he had no doubt that the mouse that hadn't taken it's eyes off them, would somehow let Tony know instantly if they'd approach him. 

"That creature." Frigga whispered to him, "It was there with him. It was part of the abandoned gate, but for all it's size and that dreaded laugh, it looked like a regular white mouse. Now it is... unnatural."

Heimdall nodded, noticing that it was listening, it had to be listening with that grin on it's face. "It came with him from the realm of Yggdrasil."

"What?! He went through- No. No that is impossible, he'd be a gibbering mess, if alive at all!"

His Queen looked aghast when he told her about Tony's arrival, his shadows. How the man hadn't been able to string a sentence together without slanting in it's topic, meaning or language, how he told the sword, a gate-fused anchor, and creature to be quiet, and seemed extremely volatile in his moods. How he was much saner now, after his rest, than he'd been upon arrival. They carefully circumvented the entire 'no heartbeat' thing.  
That was a pen of bilgesnipes to open another time.

 

"Heimdall." Tony called him over, "Thor just explained me this whole Fateless deal. I want you to tell as many people as possible that I'll be there tomorrow night."

"There already will be many who disapprove of the Allfather's decision." the god answered, feeling oddly elated by the wide, sharp smile Tony directed at him.

"There will be more when the Fateless challenges the oh-so-great tyrant of worlds."

Heimdall couldn't help but return the grin, "From your lips to the people's ears, Worshipper of Chaos."


	22. Not this time!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Loki is very much out of the loop in that cell of his, and a visitor with downright _impossible_ news doesn't make it any better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's taken so long, there were a number of RL issues, an then I didn't know what to write, so I ended up procrastinating big time, and you've got [Elli](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EllipsisObsessed/pseuds/EllipsisObsessed) to thank for this chapter! Without her I'd still be moping around!
> 
> All comments are very VERY welcome!!  
> We're almost finished!!

Loki couldn't believe this.

Really not.

What could he have possibly done, in his life to deserve this?  
Well, it is not as if the God of Chaos wasn't aware that he's done a great many things, some good, some bad, some pitiful and misguided, but what action could possibly warrant this series of events?

Gaining, no, realising the existence of his first (and only) worshipper had happened at one of the equally worst and best possible times.  
Loki could remember how the first flaring, then steady burn of his worshipper's metallic wrath had wrought within his battered body and kept his fragile, almost shattered mind together, like silver black thread binding him into a cocoon of adoration.

He also remembered when it had vanished the first time, just a mere moment before it came back, and for all it had been horrible then, he'd at least not known that it was a worshipper until that moment. At least he hadn't relied on it in any form or shape, hadn't fallen for its source.

But in the past weeks (he could scarcely believe that it'd only been weeks!), he had come to rely on the rich quicksilver of Anthony's worship, rely on it's grounding presence, the warming flow of adoration, acceptance and belief, the steady thrum of 'Anthony' in his bones.

 

And now? Now it was gone!  
What was infinitely worse than the first time he had lost it, and he'd prefer Anthony's cyan razor-wired wrath shredding his insides any second of his immortal life over this _nothingness_ , over this thing that seems to be a gaping maw in his center, so much deeper than he thought the worship possible to reach, and all he wanted to do was have it _back_!  
He wanted Anthony back, and hold on to him and never, _ever_ again let him go, never again let anything touch his Worshipper of Chaos!

Though even the so called God of Lies (which he wasn't) couldn't lie to himself effectively enough to believe Anthony still alive.  
He hadn't seen Odin's magic tear into the suit of armor, but he had hear it, metal wailing as it was deformed, twisted into a new, grotesque shape that no mortal could hope to survive inside.  
The genius was dead because of him.  
It was _his_ fault that his lovely worshipper was- no.

No!

No, that was wrong!  
It _wasn't_ his fault! Not this time!  
May it be that it was Thor's fault he'd been with Anthony (for which he couldn’t make himself hate his (not-)brother), but in the end it was Odin who _put_ him there!

It was Odin who's kept his true heritage a secret, Odin who's never treated him an equal, Odin who foolishly thought Thor to be ready for the Throne, Odin who'd waited to get them out of Jotunheim.  
It was Odin's ' _No Loki_.' and Odin's torture, and Odin who took him from the only place Loki had been happy in so- _so_ long!

It was Odin who'd stolen Loki's magic again, and it was _Odin_ who killed Anthony!

And Odin? Odin will _burn_ , burn with the rest of this foolish realm! Loki will tear them apart, one for one, and if it is the last thing he will do!

Loki could've forgiven (ignored) all those other deeds against him, but not this one, never this one, he will never, _never_ forgive the God of War for killing his sole worshipper, for killing the one most extraordinary person who'd seen him at his lowest and still believed in him!  
For killing the one person Loki had so foolishly come to love!

**Never!**

Except that he didn't know how to retaliate.  
He couldn't figure out how to get out of this blasted cell, couldn't get the shackles off his wrists, couldn't get to his magic, and the fact that Odin didn't have him tortured any more could only mean that he was to be publically executed within the week. After all, it didn't do to have the common folk of Asgard to know their prisoners to be tortured, Jotun or not.

Loki stopped pacing and carefully leaned back against the wall as not to harm his sore shoulder more than necessary.  
He thought about meditating, perhaps to try reach his magic once more, to maybe get an idea of how to escape after all, when Loki's neck hair started to stand up, and the marks on his skin rippled feeling like gooseflesh, and for all that Loki couldn't feel his own magic, he could feel Odin's that caged him shudder, _waver_ for a moment as if it was trying to escape it's purpose, and for a second- a moment, Loki could feel the blinding force of Yggdrasil bleed through the gap of unruly golden magic, and for an instant he thought to feel something of a spark within that nothing of his being, as if-

The magic snapped shut around him once more, Yggdrasil was gone, the absence within was undoubtedly rotting nothingness once more, leaving Loki's legs juddering as he slid down the wall.

What by the nine was that?! How could Yggdrasil reach within the realms like that without-

The god felt all color drain from his face when he realised what he'd forgotten.  
Oh Norns how could he have _forgotten_ that he'd left open a Gate on Anthony's island?  
And for all that his worshipper may be dead, what about Jarvis?! Was the AI alright? The Bots?  
Had he not only failed his worshipper, but Anthony's creations- his _children_ as well?!

And for a moment the thought of Anthony tearing apart Helheim came to his mind, because he _would_. If the genius found out that Loki was the reason his creations were dead, he had no doubt that Anthony would do anything and everything to get his revenge.  
To _avenge_ them (and wow, wasn’t that ironic).

Though with Yggdrasil in possession of another Abandoned Gate, three now if he remembered right, one of many set points to Ragnarök was complete.  
Perhaps he wouldn't have to bother with burning down Asgard himself, perhaps a higher entity will do it for him.  
The thought of possibly being the start of the one chain reaction, which was said to destroy the realms as they were, made Loki laugh aloud, sounding utterly deranged.  
Not that he knew it.

\- - -

It was a couple of hours later, when Loki was pacing again, thoughts wavering between plans of escape, calculating the probability of Ragnarök and trying to keep in those stupid manic giggles that kept coming over him, while trying to ignore the gaping, oily quality of the bonds absence (and how Yggdrasil had caused a spark in it and what _that_ could impossibly mean), when the door to his cell's corridor clicked open, and none other than Sif slid inside, carefully closing the door behind her.  
If the corridor his cell lay in wasn't entirely silent except for his own breath he wouldn't have heard it at all.

"Prince Loki?" she called out in the darkness, her eyes not yet used to the lighting in the room as she stepped forward.

"I am no prince of yours anymore, Sif." Loki answered warily. He had no idea what she could possibly want here, unless to torment him, but then she wouldn't sound so _worried_ , except that Sif doesn't _do_ worried.  
He tapped the Allfather's barrier none the less, making its golden glow illuminate the corridor and inside of his cell. "Or have you forgotten what I am?"

The warrior came to a halt in front of him, and he could practically feel her eyes raking over his body, stopping at the horns, before she looked him in the eyes again, seeming calm and neutral, making the god wonder if he really _had_ heard worry in her voice.  
"I could care less. You are Loki, and you are the second Prince of Asgard. Until Odin reinstates you as such, I will call you what you should be."

However much he planned to keep his face blank in the presence of Sif, Loki couldn't possibly stop himself from laughing at her. All these years that she's hated him, never paid him respect for the prince he had been, openly defying him when he'd been regent on Asgards throne.  
 _Now_ she called him by a title he no longer held?!  
"You are aware that I'll be dead by the end of the week?"

But Sif seemed unusually aplomb, as normally when someone laughed at her, the next thing the person would know was her blade.  
This time though she smiled at Loki, a small little thing that the god almost missed. He didn't though.  
She knew something he didn't.  
"You are supposed to be dead by tomorrow night, the King announced your execution. Not an hour after that, Heimdall spoke to the nine realms as the voice of none other than _the Fateless_ himself, who will bargain for your life."

Instantly Loki choked on his laugh, "Who?!!"

"Fateless. He's in the castle. Utterly terrifying if you ask me. Survived millennia in Yggdrasil's realm with his mind intact, knew more about Asgard than he's got any right to, told my shield to 'shut it's gob', and I thought he was going to rip Fandral's throat out with his _teeth_ when the dunce made a stupid comment about your being Jotun. Let's not start with his living shadows. It's like the Void itself follows him around. Creepy."

Loki stared at Sif for a long moment, trying to gauge if she was lying to him. But Sif would never admit that anyone or anything was terrifying or _creepy_ , unless it was the truth, and she did seem truly discomforted by this entity’s presence. Something Loki hadn't seen in a long, long time.

But the _Fateless_? Truly?  
What could this downright legendary entity possibly gain from freeing Loki?  
Was it even planning to _free_ him, or did it wish to own him?  
Oh Norns, what if it was one of Thanos' -

A sudden knock from the other side of the door made Sif whirl around and run off into its direction, calling over her shoulder something along the line of 'Don't worry!', seemingly oblivious to the conflict Loki suddenly found himself.

For all that he didn't want to die, for all that he wanted revenge for Anthony's death (and if at all possible avoid running into him on Helheim just yet), he'd really rather leave the realms of the living than ever be in the hands of any of Thanos' lackeys again.

Once was most definitely enough for a _lifetime_.


	23. Listen Closely (But Look Closer)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is in for a number of surprises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have absolutely no excuses, seriously. Just a mix of demotivation, procrastination, and fear of messing up these last few chapters.
> 
> Hope you will be enjoying it regardless, I will try not to let you wait much longer with finishing this fic, next chapter we should get some action going.
> 
> Thank you very much Elli for your help!
> 
> And thank you for all readers that haven't given up on this fic just yet!

Loki felt utterly drained, as he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep ever since he'd been captured, or between the hours of Sif's visit and the next time the corridor's door opened, this time letting in six of Odin's personal guard, the King's most loyal soldiers, each wearing the ceremonial golden armor.  
The god straightened up, squaring his shoulders and raising his chin, feigning a level of pride and alertness he did not feel as he silently vowed not to show fear. Not to Odin, not to his soldiers, not the folk of Asgard whom undoubtedly will spit at him for his Jotun skin, and certainly not to whatever Thanos had sent after him.  
There was no time for worry anymore, no more time for planning, death was imminent and he would walk to it with all the dignity he has left.

He did not fight as they entered the cell and muzzled him like a dog once again, adding another pair of cuffs to his ankles and chained him up, wordlessly guiding him out of his cell. 

The too loud clattering of chains and armor rang is his ears, the light that seemed to flood though the palace as it always had, stung in Loki's eyes and the air felt too hot on his skin to enjoy the comforts of its freshness compared to the cell before, and yet he ignored it all, confused as he could not spot any of the servants that usually milled about, did not see Larfas behind his desk full of scrolls as they passed the libraries entrance, undoubtedly heading or the main gates toward the city.

'Public execution' she said, Loki had expected that, yes, but not _this_ public, not on the plaza, he'd have thought that Odin would have him killed in the throne hall in front of the council and royals, not in front of literally _everyone_ who could possibly lay their eyes upon him!  
How was he supposed to get out of _that_?! No, wait, that was exactly Odin's point, add enough eyes and even the 'trickster god' would run out of tricks to perform. 

Oh Norns... he really was going to die. Die, or be 'rescued' by someone most likely loyal (or afraid of, not that there was much difference) to none other than Thanos. 

The guards stopped, and Loki realised that he had dwelled longer in his thoughts than intended, as they were now standing in front of the large golden doors of the palace's main entrance, several times as tall as Loki himself, engraving depicting Asgard above all other realms, only falling short to Valhalla, realm of those who died in battle and honor.  
The realm he will most certainly never enter.

The gate's two guards nodded into their direction, one at the rank highest of the soldiers surrounding him, the other at Loki himself with a barely there worried look, confusing the god, though before he had a chance to let his confusion manifest or mull over it the gates opened, flooding the entrance hall with the ever obnoxious blinding daylight of Asgard, and as soon as his eyes got used to it just a moment later he could already hear it.  
Cries, hoots and shouts of a thousand people if not more, all congealing into a deafening uproar upon his appearance, and the guards lightly tugging at his chains to get him walking forward.

He wanted to leave, to run, to freeze in place and never move again, to freeze _them_ all at once (not that he could with these shackles, he'd tried) to quieten the unrelenting attack on his still heightened senses compared to his Aesir form.  
He'd known there would be many, but he hadn't though it to be _this_ many.

Another ten guards joined them, undoubtedly to guarantee his survival only to be executed 'properly' by Odin himself, and Loki almost let himself take a step back, almost let himself get overwhelmed by the entirety of the situation, except that the guard next to him, one of the three holding him chained, suddenly spoke.

"Listen closely, Prince Loki." he said, barely audible over the ruckus as they stepped past the gate, and the fact that one of Odin's most loyal had addressed him with his (former) _title_ almost passed Loki's notice.  
Almost, but before he could even do so much as throw the Aesir a confused look they stepped forward, though the gate and the God couldn't do much else but follow, and listen.

At first Loki had no intention to strain his ears and make sense of the blurred cacophony that came from the crowd that seemed to spread all the ways from the palace entrance to, undoubtedly, the plaza. But before he could even attempt to ignore them, to blend out the incessant blare a chant broke out, the masses crying out in unison for one thing, and one thing alone.

**Free Prince Loki!**

The gods eyes widened, his step faltered and his jaw slackened for a fraction, before it got caught by the muzzle.

No. No this couldn't be, could it?  
How- Why would they care? Why would they-

The guard who had spoken to him before gave the chains against Loki's hip a light tug, stirring him back into walking but saying nothing this time.

In his state of shock, yes, that should be an apt description of how Loki was feeling right now, the long minutes it took to reach the plaza distilled into a short indistinct blur, but just a few meters before they would step out into the open space, now crowded with people, did Loki snap out of his stupor upon realising that here most people in the crowd weren't even from Asgard!

There were elves, of the higher and lesser families with whom he had studied magic some centuries ago, tall dark skinned Vanir in delicate looking (but undoubtedly very effective) armor, dryads in the trees, there was a golem from Muspellheim squatting on the wall flanked by more elves and even dwarves, and he couldn't decide what was more shocking, dwarves in high places or sitting shoulder to shoulder with elves without any blood to be found.  
He could even smell the distinct combination of cinnamon, fennel and overripe fruit, a sure sign that there were air sprites somewhere, reclusive nomads he had met only few times but undoubtedly more often than almost anyone else, and where those were pixies couldn't be far, and where _pixies_ were there were fae, who had strong relations with the Underworld, Helheim, as they were the only ones able to traverse that realm alive, what in turn meant that _Hela_ knew and what she knows Lady Death knows, whom- 

Loki quickly averted his eyes looking for something else to focus on, it was no use to drive himself insane with worry over Thanos when he'd probably die anyway within the next hour.

 

This crowd wasn't much quieter than the Aesir before them, but it seemed less volatile, no doubt thanks to the ever silent Vanir around them.

As they stepped out into the relatively open, if crowded, space of the plaza the people parted, leaving a path that led to a wooden platform in the center, no doubt the last space Loki should occupy within this life. Some dryad must have awakened the dead wood encouraging it to grow small leaves all over, covering it in his color, in a strong, dark green, instead of leaving it in the grim, blackish dark brown where it had been stained with convict's blood over the centuries.

_Soon to be stained with mine._ was Loki's numb thought.

The three soldiers who held his chains lead him onto the platform where they made him kneel and anchored the chains into the crude looking hooks embedded into the wood, not letting him more than a few inches of movement, certainly not enough to let him stand up, or get enough momentum to rip the anchoring out of the platform with brute force, should that even be possible.

Loki numbly stared out into the crowd, not taking notice of the guards that had escorted them here setting up a parimeter around this macabre dais, instead he scanned past the many faces that in some cases even were familiar, for- he didn't even know what for.  
Perhaps to see if he could identify this 'Fateless', recognize some face from the time he'd spent in the far reaches of the universe (perhaps something to convince himself that death was the better option), but that would be a lie.  
Loki didn't know why he still had a spark of hope, he didn't understand why defeat, something he had tasted _countless_ times in his life, seemed so impossible to accept right now, even though all he could do now was wait for Odin to arrive and-

From one moment to another the crowd quieted down to a murmur, many looking back, away from Loki and at first he thought that surely this must be Odin, except that the old King would certainly ride here on Sleipnir from the palace and would be easily visible.

 

What the god saw instead shocked him out of his numbness, as he spotted three blue figures, tall enough to tower even over the Vanir, striding through the parting crowd. Each of them with long, black dreaded hair and equally black, shining horns, adorned with what looked like gold thread and ice-blue and blood-red jewels, long cloaks covering their bodies, one of them pure white, the other two a cool grey embroider with patterns or images he couldn't make out from this far away.  
Loki felt his perspective, this image about monstrous Jotuns he'd learned, tilt. The image of them that had been ingrained for so long shatter apart, as he now saw the proof to Thor's words. Compared to these three Laufey looked like a ragged beggar king, a stain upon the realms. They looked- they looked _amazing_.

The tallest of them, the one cloaked in white looked up, old, cool red eyes meeting Loki's, seemingly studying him and suddenly the god felt like an inadequate child in a way he hadn't for several hundred years, too small, too thin, his horns (at least the one intact) a meager joke compared to theirs, dressed once again in thin prisoner's garbs while his hair probably was in a complete disarray.  
Once again reminded that he was an outlier (a runt no matter which shape he carried, Aesir or Jotun, even if the former suddenly seemed not to care) Loki averted his eyes, landing on the people walking before the three Jotun.

There was Thor, wearing a grim expression but Loki knew him well enough to see that his (not)brother was highly alert, confident. _'A man with a plan.'_. 

He was flanked by two people, to one side was Frigga, mother, wearing filigree Vanir armor that he'd never seen on her before. To his other side someone who seemed to have the same build as a Jotun but lacking the horns and with silvery olive skin instead of blue, a storm giant, Loki remembered after a moment, a storm giant whom looked exceedingly like...no, could it be?!  
Having the three of them right next to each other made it very easy to compare their faces and builds to each other, and Loki couldn't help but recognize that Thor resembled this seemingly random man much, much more than he ever had Odin. 

"This would explain _so much_.", Loki muttered to himself behind the mask, he'd always wondered how Thor could influence the weather without ever traini- -

The god's thoughts stuttered to an instant halt as the short procession lined up at the perimeter around the platform, and revealed a seventh person that had walked between the two groups.

 

Taller than the dwarves, shorter than the elves, looking pale, but entirely too alive to be real, glaring straight at Loki with a downright scary intensity.  
 _He_ couldn't be here, this must be some apparition, right?!  
Odin had killed him, Loki had _heard_ the incessant shriek of warping metal, there was no way that a mortal (however much he should've never been one) would have survived an attack by Odin, right? 

He was seeing things, _right?!_

Except that if he was hallucinating then so was the tallest of the Jotun, who currently leaned down to speak into the man's ear, Anthony though did not react, eyes entirely focused onto Loki with a manic stillness that he'd never seen in the man.  
The white cloaked Jotun leant closer, gold strands of the tall horns brushing against dark brown hair as he lifted a blue hand out of the cloak, seemingly to touch the man's shoulder, when a creature suddenly appeared seemingly wrapped around Anthony's neck, first hissing and baring it's pointed teeth, then seemingly _giggling_ when the Jotun flinched back.

Something was wrong. 

Something was _very_ wrong with this picture, Stark was too still, too pale, the usual flush from the Arc reactor's heat missing, too focused even for the genius, and what was that creature, that large black-

Mouse.

Loki felt his eyes widen in shock and realization, not that he knew what had happened, but something had happened with the Gate, something had happened to _Tony_ in connection with the feral magic, something that had warped not just the mouse that used to be white, that _used_ to be one of Tony's favorite coffee mugs, but his genius as well.

 

The low thrumming sound of horns suddenly echoed over the crowd through all of the plaza, announcing the arrival of King Odin, effectively snapping Loki out of his circling thoughts, not enough information to solve the puzzle, just in time to catch Anthony throwing him a wink and that familiar, infuriating grin. 

Somehow it felt like reassurance.

Everything would be fine.

Somehow.

Right?


	24. A conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short scene between Frigga and Thor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "This is not dead!" I say as I frantically dig up this fic grave.  
> Been trying to get into it forever now. So here, have a short scene for Thor and Frigga bonding!

"But will they be enough? And moreover, how can you be sure that our people won't harm them?" Thor asked, pacing between the two sofas with nervous energy, only to get caught by the hand as he passed Frigga once again, makign him halt long enough for her to pull him into the seat next to her.

"My son, you underestimate our realm, they know, they agree, they feel it too. Change is written in the stars and has been for a long time. Odin's magic is waning away day by day, just as his power over the realms."

Thor looked at her, hopeful, doubtful. He knows Frigga has seen this man at the height of his power, but then, to him Odin has always seemed powerful. Always seemed immovable and absolute.  
But he knows his mother is smarter, hasn't always understood it, or understood how, but she is. Had to be, to remain at Odin's side for so long.

"If you are sure." he relents, leaning his elbows heavy on his knees, "What is my role in this?"

Frigga smiled, wide, loving, honest in her display of approval towards her son. He realised that she had been doing that more often recently, realised that the nervous anticipation she seemed to constantly hold was hope. Hope for the change that she now says is inevitable, that feels inevitable. A heavy, noiseless buzzing in the background, that one can neither pinpoint, nor ignore. Like movement, just beyond your range of sight.

"I have called your father." she admits "And I would like it if you walked with us to the plaza together, display that Odin holds no more power over us by wearing your father's colors, if you will?"

She waits for Thor's answer, a quick relieved "Of course.", before she embraces him, pulls him up by his hands.  
"Then let us go, you have to try it on, no nick may marr my sons skin because his armor wasn't fitted properly. It's in my Armory, I shall dress you!"

Thor, who'd been letting himself be pulled along by her, spluttered, "Mother!" he calls out, feeling heat creep onto his face, I'm not a child anymore!"

She laughs, her smile teasing but without malice. "You are still my child, and you will always be."

For all but a moment he was dumbstruck, but seeing her excitement, visible as he feels it hadn't been in a long time, he decided to let it be and indulge her motherly affections.  
"Very well," he said, catching up so that their steps matched, not letting go of her hand. He noticed how it was damp with sweat. He could not fault her fear, her nervousness. Change is unpredictable, Stark was unpredictable, in particular now that Yggdrasil seems to have a hold on him.  
Thor squeezed his mother's hand in his, willing her bravery and courage, even more than he knows she already has.  
"Then show me this armor you are so proud of!"

Though it wasn't the armor that she was proud of, not the tightly woven white cloth that was going to lie around Thor's neck and shoulders, falling down his back, or the thin, dark metal that will protect him from spells just as well as blades.

She was proud of her son, and how much he had grown in such a short time, how much he had learned, how well he had adapted, let go of these harmful old ways and beliefs that Odin had taught him.


	25. Cacophony of the Masses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Odin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what? Still kicking. 
> 
> This chapter doesn't move forward much in the story itself, I fear, but hey... I figured better this than nothing, yes?

Tony's thoughts were racing.  
They were always racing, always chasing after each other to disprove theories, improve ideas, solve problems (make problems). But not like this. 

Frigga had meant to instruct him on what to do, on how to challenge Odin and what the best course of action and reaction would be. She had tried talking to him, tried to keep his attention but even she could tell that he wasn't really there, couldn’t take in her advice. 

Tony's thoughts were racing.  
Not the way he had when he had just arrived in Asgard, he barely even remembered talking with Heimdall or Thor, a blur of memories that felt as real of a memory as everything else in his head that he knew was not 

No this time his thoughts were racing, with what he was about to do, with what he could do. Once again an avalanche of information that had been dumped into his thoughts last night, kept him unable to sleep, kept him distracted enough as not to panic when he realised he wasn't breathing, but so so much more manageable than the sheer presence of everything. At least this was all connected, all with purpose, for a reason, a cause. 

He knew what to do, how to do it.  
He was warned on what should happen if he failed. He knew he wouldn't be able to go back if he failed, wouldn't be able to stop Odin, or free Loki and Frigga, wouldn't be able to see Jarvis again, or drink coffee or tinker or do anything. Anything at all.  
He'd be dead, the realms would be doomed to stagnation and a new war, the last war, The War. Ragnarök. 

The mouse on his shoulders paced from the left to the right, paws never slipping, making small huffing and grinding sounds, tickling his face with it's whiskers. 

He had tried to eat breakfast, drink the hot tea he had been served, been recommended by Thor actually, who'd never struck Tony as much of a tea drinker, but he'd been unable to hold it down.  
It had burned in his stomach, felt wrong, invasive as if it'd been cement. 

Tony felt fine now, if nervous, walking behind three of Jotunheim’s most important figures. He wasn't sure who of them was who, he'd gotten too many scenes, too many images with them, too much noise and snippets of conversations, close to magic as they were. So much more saturated than Aesir.

They were lined up like this mostly for his sake, he realised as they were wading through the masses, having them split before the towering Jotun as he walked in their wake, back straight, a light armor he had received from Frigga, black and white and gold, woven together in a beautiful chaotic pattern, marking him as Change. He didn't know how people were supposed to be able to tell from this, but he also saw no reason to deny her wish.

A heavy breath escaped his ribs, a fortifying sigh out of habit, not necessity. 

He had been too lost in his head, too wrapped up in the last tweaking of the strategies and tactics displayed in his mind like blueprints and circuit diagrams (not as perfectly tuned as he would like them to, but good enough, just good enough), too distracted to notice the pedestal that they had approached, to notice Loki until the mouse pricked a claw against the back of his neck.

Tony looked up, and then he saw him. Kneeling, chained to an old stained wooden block. (The impression of it being a great tree pressed itself into Tony's mind, the seat of the roots half a mile below Asgard's pavement, this was only the leftover stump of one giant tree trunk whose branches had reached over most of this disc world, its roots could still be seen in the eternal waterfalls if one just looked close enough.)

There was Loki, the man who started all this, the man Tony went through all this for, the anchor that had given him enough reason in the chaos to reach out to Heimdall, the reason he had reached out to magic's source. The reason he was this twisted version of himself that seemed to want to vibrate apart the moment Tony stopped paying attention. But the sight of him was a welcome reprieve, made all this seem more doable, more manageable, Loki's stare seemed to cement Tony's mind to the ground, strap it's pieces together, made everything easier. Lighter. More weighted down. 

The Jotun standing next to Tony leaned down to him. "Your bond is strong. Odin tried to bind it, break it, but it is almost palpable-"

A strand of the gold chains brushed Tony's hair, his stomach clenched, an internal flinch as his attention was momentarily ripped from Loki. But he didn't look away, forced himself not to move, not to start trembling at the tension around them that made everything seem surreal. The mouse hissed, the Jotun flinched back, Tony didn't have the air for a relieved sigh.

Only moments afterwards the sound of horns made the air vibrate, everyone's heads turned towards the great golden gates, the one two parties had already exited from. Everyone, except Tony and Loki' locked in their stare down, and Tony could almost feel Loki's fear and confusion swimming in his own bones. He wasn't sure how to reassure him, how to let him know "I'm real. You're here. You're awake." how to let him know "You're okay." and "You're going to be okay." and "I've got this.", "I won't betray you, I won't let you down.". How to let him know all the things that he wants to tell Loki, reassure Loki, reassure himself. Things he feels he would never be able to adequately express in words.

Instead he throws him a smile and a wink, falling back onto an old habit, giving a pleasant relief in the dysphoric chaos, and if Loki's softening expression is anything to go by it had worked, a little is better than not at all, right? 

They turned their heads towards the commotion, calls to free Loki, to free the realms, boos of disapproval, yells of ambiguous opinion that could be interpreted as either, and above all the thick white noise of discontent murmuring. 

Soldiers marched in front of him, making sure to have a clear path for the king but the masses did not part so easy as they had for Loki, as they had for Thor and Frigga. Odin's carefully sculpted scowl of generalized discontent, once he had come close enough to make it out, left a sweet, acrid taste on Tony's tongue. He had a minute, less even, before the window for an appropriate challenge would open, even less until it would close afterward and any legal option to save Loki would become void.

What captivated Tony only moments later though, was the steed that Odin rode upon. Bigger than any Horse Tony had ever seen, blue black dappled fur, thick muscled neck curled, legs- 

Legs.

Tony isn't sure how many, he knows the stories, he know supposedly it's eight but that's not really how they work, it is like three horses legs fading in and out of existence with a shine of pitch black hooves. The illusion (it isn't) is captivating, mind boggling, grabs attention and awe like a magnet and it's hard not to be cowed, between Sleipnir's size, strength, grace and magic.

It is only when Sleipnir looks at _him_ that Tony realises what this is, what is going on, and a whisper of pleading for freedom, pleading for father and a hundred faint sighs of resignation echo in his chests hollowness, just behind the reactor, like a featherlight touch on the raw, sore nothingness.

Loki, the Jotun standing next to Tony, leans away from the being like it's too loud, all the way until his arm touches against Tony's shoulder. This time the mouse doesn't retaliate, Tony doesn't get overwhelmed, instead he finds himself laying a fortifying hand onto the tall Jotun's lower back, still staring at Sleipnir's too intelligent and tired eyes. 

Not many seem to take notice, of neither their reaction, nor the steeds silent cry for help, instead they took notice of Odin in his golden Armor, with Gungnir in his hand, a sword on his hip, Asgard's crown upon his brow. Not one hair of his beard out of order. 

The King's mask of indifference only broke when he caught sight of the leaves growing from the old wood, or his once-son Loki kneeling exposed and frightened, but not quite desperate in the center of the plaza. People were still yelling, chanting, not the ones closest to the centre, but those in the back, those not in the immediate range of the god-king's wrath. Instead you could hear the hushed whispers, the melodic murmurs of the elves and sharp hisses, or deep growls of the dwarves. 

There was a cacophony of seemingly hundreds of birds, echoing above the rooftops.

Only once Odin got off his steed, and Gungnir’s staff hit the ground with a loud, booming crack that vibrated in Tony's ears, did silence fall, only leaving the kings heavy boots audible, as they hit the old wood, climbing the few steps onto the podium that seemed to raise him taller than it did for Loki.

Odin's cold, hard gaze swept over the crowd, only hesitating as he found Frigga, Vedhr and Thor, glaring as it passed the Jotun, turning distasteful when he turned further towards the prisoner and met eyes with Loki.

In the distance was barely audible the sound of marching soldiers.

 

No one moved.


	26. Chaotic angry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'That feel when' you expect Loki to ruin your plan because chaos, but then it's sorta kinda you yourself who derails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, here we are, a little later than necessary but I tired!  
> Also ran it through hella editing program so your eyes shouldn't even start bleeding from typos.  
> Unless they involve s vs. 's

"This," Odin's voice boomed effortlessly through the crowds noise, " Is the execution of the Jotun Loki Laufeyson, Breaker of Worlds, The Silver Tongue, God of Mischief and Mayhem, The Trickster, The Liesmith, former Prince of Asgard stripped of this title, and former Regent of the Realms, stripped of that too."

In all honesty Tony was surprised that Odin allowed Loki that much dignity, to address his by his titles, to announce them to this crowd that managed a short uproar at the mention of Loki's loss of being the prince.

"He stood trial for his crimes, he endured his punishment for his crimes to Asgard and Jotunheim."

Odin paused, let the crowd holler and yell and cheer, let them get angry at seeing Loki up there about to be sentenced to death even though he'd suffered for his crimes, let them rile each other up and just when the tumult seemed to reach its apex, he spoke up again, voice cutting through the noise effortlessly and accusing, breaking their conviction with just a few words, making them halt, doubt.

"He defied his punishment to Midgard."

Tony Glanced over at Frigga, her eyes focused on Odin, the slight bob of her head barely visible.

Any moment now.

"He defied his punishment for Midgard. Broke free his magic, bound to protect his mortal prisoner, and ran away like a coward, as if he wasn't aware of his crimes, his duty to atone."

Even from here Tony could clearly see Lokis grimace at the accusation, and Tony took a fortifying breath, blessing how clear and quiet his mind was at this moment as if Yggdrasil knew how important this moment was, and stepped forward. Moved, when everyone else seemed spellbound by Odin's words.

"With all due respect," he intoned, smoothly, no booming, no yelling, just his casual 'by the by I am talking and you listen please and thank you' but still perfectly audible even to those in the furthest rows. He loved that line. So passive aggressively demure.

"With all due respect but that is not true."

All eyes were on him, staring, baffled, open mouths and hushed whispers. Odin's withering glare practically palpable as the King turned himself to Tony. The rules binding him to inquire. 'The only time a death sentence can be questioned is the moment after the accusation. There will be no prompting, no signal. One word more and you have lost your chance.' Friggas words rang in vague memory.

"Who is it that would defend the subject," Odin questioned, all per protocol. He cannot break face in front of this many.

"My name is Tony Stark of Midgard," this brought mutters and questions, Tony knew he couldn't justify more than a dramatic moment, a pause to make them digest this, a mortal among their midst, perhaps, the mortal? Lokis keeper?

"I am Iron Man, the Merchant of Death, Father of Abominations, The Starsmith, I am The Worshipper of Chaos, and The Fateless." he paused again, gathering a breath, wanting to make sure his statement came out as good as possible, when his mouth seemingly opened by itself as he took another step forward, the voice that came out of his mouth not entirely his, not entirely clear as the static of rustling leaves echoed behind it, "I am The Voice of Yggdrasil, the World Tree."

Tony shuddered. That, that had not been him that had all been the magic that had stopped his body, that had ripped him into the realm of Yggdrasil, this HAD BEEN Yggdrasil, hissing in his ear trough the pointy teeth of a black mouse sitting on his shoulder.  
Into his ear, through his voice to the masses.

On one hand, this prospect terrified him more than the entire thing where it had hijacked his body from earth to Asgard, on the other he really hoped that he would make it out alive when it decided he had done his deed.

An uproar went through the crowd, and a shudder went through Odin, only visible in the twitch of his hand at the hilt of his sword. Only visible because Tony knew that the god kings magic had just toiled and shivered, together with every other magic user on this plaza, possibly this realm, Tony wouldn't know, the only magic he has is his arc reactor and that WAS Yggdrasil, man-made magic without signature, pure, accessible just as much as any gate if it had been enough to be noticeable for something as vast as magic's source.

He gathered himself, not wanting Odin to believe this was all, he has to state the facts.

 

"I was Loki's keeper, you handed him to me through your soldiers, with the statements that I could do to him as I would see fit, so long he does not die. I saw fit to let him rest. To let him recuperate from your torture, and to care for him. I saw fit to shield him from Midgard's governing forces. I saw fit to defend him from you, as you came and tore him away, and attempted to murder me, the person you had him sent to, to do with as I wished. I saw fit to take him to my lair and there release Loki's magic from the shackles you placed on him. This was my decision, my choice. You are defying your own words as I only did as I saw fit."

"Are you really attempting to convince me, that a mortal has defied artifacts of Asgards vaults."

"Yes." Tony replied easily and found himself reaching into one of his pockets, pulling out the covers from a space that would not ever be big enough to hold them. He had not taken them with him, he hadn't even a clue where they had been up until right now. Magic is awesome, and completely, mind-blowingly terrifying. "Would you like me to demonstrate?"

Odin stared for a long moment, possibly considering the denial of truth in a trial, to Loki having his magic back, but then nodded. "Very well, you may demonstrate on the prisoner."

Tony stepped forward, found himself almost jogging up to Lokis pedestal, brushed a quick pet over his cheek as Loki whispered a "what in the realms is going on Tony" at him.

"I'll explain later if I can," Tony whispered back, "just whatever you do, stay put, we have a plan, we cannot ruin it. If this fails, if we do- Just stay in your chains, stay in this role. Just trust me, ok?"

The covers snapped shut around the magic blocking bracers, and for a moment Tony felt like he got punched int he chest. Punched in the chest, with fear, worry, confusion, admiration, care, fear fear fear, wonderment and the pleasantly cool touch of chaos.

They have connected again. He felt (almost) whole again, almost right, almost like before.

"There." Tony announced, turning to see Odin's stony, distinctively sour expression.

There was nothing now, that Odin could kill him for.  
This was the first step to dismantling him.

Anger stirred in Tony's chest, pricked at him from just under his skin, from just where the mouse's claws were digging through the armor that Frigga had given him as if it did not exist.

Loki covered himself with the illusion of his Aesir skin.

A moment later Tony could feel magic boiling over as he stepped towards Odin, too close, too much in the range of the crying Gungnir, of Odin's sword vibrating in its sheath, of Odin's stricken face.

From the corner of his eyes Tony could see that he looked wrong, felt himself like he was half a step beside his body, all-encompassing wrath clouding his sense, the figurative (or literal?) roots running through Tonys thoughts pushing him aside, pushing to speak, pushing to rend, to tear, to -  
' _Control yourself this can mean so much more than a bloodbath use your words use your words use your words-_ ' he mentally chanted at magics source that seemed to try and push its entirety through him to fuck with the one person it apparently hated the most.

The mouse's claws now digging roots instead of claws into his skin, its black fur interspersed with white, gleaming leaves, its eyes a void, its hiss a rustle, a breeze, a plethora of worlds humming now through Tonys voice, through Tonys mouth ' _use your words_ ' he had said.

Using its words it would do.

 _This_ was so not the plan.


End file.
